


Omamori

by oofen_flugen



Series: choir of the not quite forgotten [1]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ash Lynx Goes to Japan, Ash Lynx Lives, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Music, M/M, SO, Suicide Attempt, a deeper look into eijis mental health, all my dumb writing mistakes are my own, general warning for all the stuff in banana fish, i am incapable of writing anything that's not angst, let eiji sing 2020, literally get everyone in this show some therapy, theres no beta for this, yut-lung's unofficial redemption arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26132992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oofen_flugen/pseuds/oofen_flugen
Summary: Eiji couldn't forget what happened in America. There were so many things that no one else saw, and that he couldn't talk about. He's finally able to write it down, but chords and lyrics aren't enough. It's been two years and he's living on his own. With all the loose ends tied up, he's ready to fly again.Or:Eiji's mental health doesn't get talked about enough, and it's time for ash to comfort him
Relationships: Ash Lynx & Okumura Eiji, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Series: choir of the not quite forgotten [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960021
Comments: 105
Kudos: 308





	1. A winter's morning

**Author's Note:**

> song lyrics used are from this song:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLKoaqE69Tc  
> original version is from Given
> 
> hope you guy's enjoy, trigger warnings will be listed as needed in future chapters

The stage lights blinded him. The colored orbs that remained as Eiji blinked. He was ready. As ready as he would ever be. His sister lurked with questions unspoken, her signature yellow coat blending in Eiji’s mind. America remained an unspoken subject between the two. 

The stage was simply set up. A piano in the corner, a stool and microphone for the guitarist, and a complicated set of lights pointing to the front of the stage. The wood was worn and gray, the fluorescent lights did nothing to help. Two years ago Eiji would have shuddered at the prospect of sharing himself like this. His hands still shook with the mindset. It’s not that it had passed, rather it was pushed down into a cavern, set atop a mountain. It was too quiet here. Normally the patter of footsteps would be enough to fill a sense of normality. Most of the students had gone back to their dorms, their exhaustion manifesting in endless cups of coffee. Eiji’s hands craved a pen instead. The pole that would have rested in calloused fingers only to produce a brief moment of adrenaline replaced by ink carved into the worn paper that littered his desk. Countless people had told him to just talk about it. Therapist after therapist pointed at inspirational quotes on the wall. Half of them had sunrises on them. The logical part of his brain recognized the intention- a fresh start, a reminder of life's beauty, the other filled in jade eyes. Yet here he was, what was not in reality, but felt like the majority of his life. His childhood felt more like a backdrop in a play, the hours spent making it lost behind the main show. 

He poured so much of his soul into lyrics that wouldn’t even be sung to anyone but himself. He asked the two other musicians to record the backing track a week ago. 

He pressed play, and the soft piano echoed in the hall. The microphone felt like a gun in his hands. 

  * \- 



Max’s weekly visits were becoming less and less frequent. It’s not like he was complaining. Max wore his expressions for all to see. He tried too hard to act like a military man, but in the end, he was just another father trying his best. Two days ago he came barging in with three bags of shit food placed haphazardly on the rotten table. When the same blue car pulled up to the run-down apartments in the purgatory of city and cornfields Ash knew something was up. 

His back cracked as he sat up from the couch near the window. The bird that had been eating a french fry there flew away. Ash tousled his hair before slipping the door open. Max’s pink Hawaiian shirt was an ironic match for the frown on his face.

“Ash,” Max whispered (or as close he could, that man was too loud for his own good) as a greeting.

“Max.” Ash knew the collected dismissal wasn’t what Max was looking for. His blue eyes would always dull for a second before starting again slightly more upbeat. This time they didn’t even change. 

Ash slowly pulled open the door, and Max dragged himself to the couch before resting his head in his hands. His finger pulled through his brown hair before he looked up at Ash. The two days shouldn’t have made that much of a difference, but Ash looked thinner, the circles under his eyes more pronounced. Even though it had been days since Ash left the apartment his red converses -noticeably duller now- were still on, pointed towards his guest. 

“I know I’ve said this to you before,” Max started.

“It’s not going to stop you from saying it again.”

“Ash, you look like shit. Don’t even try to deny that much.” In response, Ash only pulled out a chair and sat down. His muscles pulled like lead being hammered into the wood. “But that’s not why I’m here.” He paused opening and closing his mouth as if waiting for an invitation. Ash obliged and raised an eyebrow. “Ibe sent me this.”

Max slipped his phone forward. The screen was filled with a muted darkness, the navy bouncing from side to side the only suggestion of movement. It was dark for a few seconds before the darkness was replaced by a stage. The screen took a second to focus before it rested at a strange angle at none other than Eiji. Eiji who still donned a sweater-vest and perfectly messy hair.

“Why are you showing me this Max? You know what I chose,” Ash said lacking the energy to control the anger seeping through. “What I gave up,” he muttered more for himself than anything. The video still laid paused as the two men stared at each other. 

“You don’t get to say you’re doing the best for him if you refuse to acknowledge his existence, Ash.”

The room filled with tension as Ash slammed his hands on the armrest of the couch. Max didn’t flinch only increasing that fucking stare. 

“You have no idea,” he spat “what you are talking about.”

“Then tell me,” Max pleaded. “You act like no one cares about you and yet you refuse help. You did so much in the name of his safety, but now you can’t shoot his problems away.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Max didn’t answer. The video began to play again at the touch of Max’s finger. The wedding ring Jessica gave back awhile ago that should have been welcoming. Piano filled the silence with a soft melody. Ash’s eyes flicked over to Max but the sound of Eiji’s voice brought them straight back to the video. It was soft even though the sound effortlessly reached to wherever Ibe was crouched. Eiji never told him he could sing. 

_ Can light break this greyish haze and melt away, _

_ The snow that freezes over every day _

Ash felt like he could meet Eiji’s vision. Even though Ash’s eyes were glued to the screen, the wondering gaze both converged on the mountain top they shared.

_ The chill won’t let me shake the ghost of you, _

Their apartment was high enough that the whites of the neighboring building made a new mountain. Eiji hated the cold. Ash couldn’t remember his birthday and yet the thermometer still sat at the same ridiculously warm temperature Eiji always insisted. Ash looked back at Max but could tell that they both relived memories of the time. Maybe it was something about living in the same place for so long. When there’s nothing new everything comes rushing back.

_ Hey, won’t you tell me what to do _

_ Before I lose myself holding on to you _

Part of Ash wanted to deny that it was about him. His voice rang out in clarity that could only be cultivated by thoughtful sorrow. It hurt that he twisted a dagger that he let be put in there, but it hurt more as he realized his eyes widened at the parallels. 

Max switched between observing Ash’s reactions to looking away. A dance to music Ash wasn’t ready to hear. 

_ I reminisce on broken strings  _

_ Your fall into eternity _

Max told him that Eiji found out through Sing. The games of telephone tied strings around Ash’s neck, but the slow strangling was better than the relief of Eiji’s voice. The consistency wouldn’t die with a bullet wound. Ash tried his hardest not to picture it. He’d already caused enough pain to him to last a lifetime, and even when his own should have ended Eiji still has that same naive expression of hurt. 

Ash felt like a container for repressed anger. The thing that constantly saved him but still leaked out enough for his enemies to share. But that drained out as Eiji’s voice carried through. Max seemed to notice it too and softened. 

_ A curse I can’t forgive and can’t erase, _

_ I live with my mistakes that cost me you _

“You didn’t do anything Eiji,” Ash felt himself whisper out. “Don’t blame yourself.”

“Ash..” Max tried again, but he couldn’t deal with the silent and brutal glare that Max always seemed to have. Maybe it was the reporter in him that made him say the truth in every detail.

_ My tears are freezing as I cry beneath a winter morning sky, _

_ Calloused fingers gripping tight to the mess you left behind _

The rest of the song had been so smooth, but the water froze to ice as Eiji breathed out ‘mess.’ Ash noticed the way his fingers clenched around the microphone. Yet Eiji’s eyes radiated forgiveness. The same way black holes provide clarity. The way that everything can exist without shadows and history. All consumed by something powerful but impartial. Religions speculated on the realities of the afterlife if any of them were true, and the light reaching out to the separating soul went somewhere, Eiji’s eyes were the tunnel. 

_ We’ve never been apart I know, _

_ And now it ends with me alone _

Ash wanted to laugh. The half-eaten meals that laid around, the gray room was only filled with a desk with the letter in it. The plane ticket tucked underneath. Eiji never said things that were just about himself. Ash ended up researching Japenese luck charms one day. Omamori they were called. The back of the plane ticket was scribbled with mindless doodles- most likely from whenever Eiji bought it. A ticket that could have brought him the good luck that Eiji’s claimed to. Ash wondered if Eiji kept his. 

_ If all of you is all I’m left _

_ I promise you I won’t forget _

_ I’ll see you in the light of dawn _

_ You’re always here with me _

The song died out and the camera was shoved back into Ibe’s pocket. Max and Ash both sat in the silence leftover. The tear that landed on Ash’s hand was the first thing to bring him back to reality. Max greeted him with a smile. 

“I’ll go,” Ash decided. He’d told himself for so long that Eiji had moved on. Even if he just went to see if he was more okay than what the chords could portray, Ash needed to see him again. 


	2. Mourning dove

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two y'all, it's all Eiji.
> 
> trigger warning for death idealization, reference to needles and knives, nothing too bad

The plethora of shops sitting idly by the sidewalk passed by in a blur. He’d passed each hundreds of times in his childhood. Something about aging made you see things normally driven away by sunkissed skin. The old bakery was now closed - the owners ran out of money. The flower garden outside the clothing store that once had exotic flowers were now domesticated petals drowned in fertilizer. Eiji still thought they were beautiful. Maybe more so. They looked like what the lyre should have sounded like. Not just a series of plings lost in the open towns, but the all-encompassing rise of stars. Each one blinking from something long ago and long passed, or maybe just a trick of the light. Forgotten. 

The end of the street had a small convenience shop. People hurried in and outs with prescriptions, phones held to their ears. After a few muttered apologizes Eiji pushed open the glass door. His arms were soon filled with a roll of paper, a fresh bottle of ink and a calligraphy pen marked 25% off. The counter had a flower arrangement of envelope colors and Eiji reached for the purple one at the far right. 

The cashier smiled and handed his card back. 

“Do you need a bag sir?” the cashier asked.

Eiji shook his head and waved them off. 

-

With enough cash from his job with Ibe, Eiji was able to afford a small run-down apartment a few miles from his university. Ibe suggested he buy a bike so he could make it to classes on time. Eiji refused. Sing had found Shorters bike abandoned in the warehouse Skip had died. Even without the gasoline and engine, Eiji couldn’t ride one.   
He placed his items from the store on the counter, hesitating for a moment before kicking off his shoes. The pen was covered in hard plastic. Eiji threw the packaging on the ground and slipped one of the nibs on the base. The paper was fancy enough to have a yellow tint and browned edges. The extra cost didn’t mean anything. The divets on the surface were like wet sand. With the ink shaken Eiji began to write. Japanese characters merging with random English words. The ink smeared a little too much for his liking but he couldn’t start over. 

-

The pot was two seconds from boiling over when a knocking came from the door. Eiji hated this feeling. His breath hitched in his throat, and the rolling waves in his stomach that could only be described as a deep magenta. The feeling of looking down a well, and the color that stared back at you. Another round of knocks came. 

“Oni-chan, open the door. It’s rude to leave your sister waiting!”

The burner was still on, the red flashing again. It was a funny design. The circles laced throughout drew the eye to the center. The kitchen counters were a similar shade of black. The company was asking for third-degree burns. Eiji turned the heat off and balanced the lid. Some of the water hit the burner and bubbled before turning to steam. 

He unlocked the door and pulled it open. His soft smile was greeted by a bemused look.

“I’ve been here for hours,” Kumi stated. The exaggeration fits her well. She made the most dramatic facial expressions. A theatre mask with pale skin. 

Eiji opened the door further in response. Kumi practically skipped the coach, bringing out two folders from her schoolbag. 

“Homework?”

She sighed and brought a pencil’s eraser up to her mouth. “I swear the schools trying to brainwash us.”

The pencil looked more like a syringe than anything. His forearm itched with the anticipation. The few knives that Eiji owned, dirtied from making dinner felt like scalpels. 

People always talked about feeling things on them. Being scared of highs and feeling the air push down on you. But Eiji could feel the metal weighing on the counter. A constant reminder that they were there. Waiting. Shorter had a knife, it didn’t matter if the grip was wooden this time and branded with a cheap business logo. The pressing weight of the knives morphed Shorter's face into Arthurs. Straight to the side, and Ash falling-

BANG

“Nii-san?” Eiji’s eyes adjusted to his sister. Standing in front of him with the metal pan he swore he had been holding. “Are you okay?”

“Sorry-” he looked around, the neat and orderly apartment was still just an apartment. No large windows or secret rooms. “I’m fine, college tests have me little stressed.”

He knew that Kumi wouldn’t believe him, but after too long of a second she went back to her homework. Eiji grabbed the pan she handed to him and put it next to the sink. He stirred the noodles on the stove. The underside was a little burned. The dishes would take longer tonight. Eiji pulled out the small trashcan under the sink and with still shaking fingers dropped the knives into it. He breathed out in synch with the trashcan slipping back under. 

He grabbed two plates and piled a small portion of each assortment of food onto them. He rested one next to Kumi and she nodded her head in thanks. Eiji sat at the table and picked at his food until Kumi was done. 

“Thanks for stopping by, but you really don’t need to do it,” Eiji noted as she dropped the dish into the sink. Kumi packed the last of her stuff in her bag near the door. 

“But nii-san, you make the best dinners.”

“And you make twice the dishes,” he retorted. 

She stuck her tongue out before making her way to the door. “I just miss you is all.”

He wanted to say he missed her too. He did, but not in the same way she did. She was the same person. He was the only reason there was something to miss. “Go enjoy being weird, being sentimental doesn’t suit you.” 

She smiled again and closed the door behind her. Eiji let out a breath he was painfully aware he was holding. Where the comfort of fresh oxygen should have been, the lasting chill of the apartment remained. There was still so much he had to do. His clothes littered the floor leading towards his bed. The dishes piled up. His last school assignments sat not yet uploaded on his computer. 

-

Dear Ash, 

I’ve heard too much about writing down your thoughts. Anyone who says that doesn’t think enough. It’s not that I haven’t compiled all that I want to say, the problem is that there is no one to say it to. So I’m writing it to you. You used to say ‘dead men tell no tales.’ You didn’t want me to hear you say that. You tossed around mortality like it was nothing. I didn’t use to understand why you did it. I do now: tossing it around reminds you it’s still there. Waiting until the last minute reminds you that time does in fact pass.

You said you knew nothing about me once. I know your history, and while in comparison that may seem like more than the fact that I have a sister, it doesn’t hide the fact that I knew nothing about you as a person. Every time I thought I was getting close, you’d be dragged closer to the edge. You said you wanted a normal life, but I think you found enjoyment in getting as close to the edge as you could. 

The gang talked when you were in the mansion. Whatever moment you weren’t there they talked about you. You were like a god to them, and yet they didn’t catalog your achievements, they created data tables of how everyone stacked up to you. I must have been a splinter in whatever architecture they created to describe you because they couldn’t explain what you saw in me. 

It used to look seem like an honor, to be close to you. But we both knew that you were right. If I had left the first time you told me you might still be alive. Kumi and I would still do shopping trips like we did when we were little. But once you said you wanted me to stay I-

I’m not going to deny that I would have loved to go back to Japan. The countless gods and shrines were a barrier that I would have loved to sit in. Funny isn’t it? I left Japan to feel like I could move again, and I returned with kill counts, a gunshot wound, and dead friends. But here’s the thing. Your response to that would have been more closed doors. I was never your damsel Ash. You created shrines painted with the blood of anyone who dared oppose you. Bones looked so surprised when I said I had fought you. Did he expect another shrine, this time dedicated to a bird that seemed all too common of a metaphor for me? I should want to hate you Ash, and maybe I do. My life led to meeting you, and you took the easy way out. You knew that wound was nonfatal. My life became about you. You made me feel alive, and yet I’m here writing letters to a man buried in the ground. Everything was about you, and it was because you were a mountain to be climbed and conquered. Everyone else was just hikers who fell short. You were a mountain hiding lava underneath pounds of snow waiting until you could end it all. 

Even after everything I’ve gone through that you never knew, I still think only in terms of you. You were a project. A test of my ability to save someone after I was so sure I had lost myself. I know I couldn’t save Shorter. You never asked if I was there. I saw the needle, Ash. You may have pulled the trigger, but I watched as the seed was planted and couldn’t do anything about it. And even after all of that I still needed to comfort you. 

I love you, and I hate it. We were each others saving graces, but our personalities bled out the seven deadly sins. After Pandora’s box was opened, do you think we could exist together in the ashes of the fallout? 

You toss around mortality because it’s the last thing left in that box. I understand why you let yourself drift away. Death was your secret hope. Maybe there was something more than practicality to the idea of coffins. Death was your secret hope, and every day since you left I’ve become more and more like you. 

I said my soul was always with you. But there was never a moment I gave it to you because the second I would have it was already gone. It was taken by each gunshot, by ropes above my head, each moment of shared suffering until we were one and the same. 

You said dead men tell no tales, so I’m writing them out before I see you again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kumi means a long life. name meanings give me so much joy in writing. comment if you wanna talk about this show, I have so many random rants that I'm happy to share. Thank you all for reading. i literally have no plot planned for this so just sort of take each chapter as a series of one shots that exist in this same universe.


	3. Sunset

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank to everyone who is reading this, and especially everyone who comments and leaves kudos. it makes my day.  
> This chapter has reference to suicide, and non con drug use. it's all in passing though. stuff will most likely get darker from here on out.

Sing was an interesting figure in Eiji’s life. Part of him brought a certain solace, a reminder of a partial remaining innocence. The other did the opposite. Even in another country Sing still took phone calls with hushed voices and orders. Sing was a reminder that everything could go away. A restaurant the two went to became an unspoken topic after two siblings fought in the center. Sing shook it off and continued to play with the ornate red napkins at the table before walking back to his motel. 

Eiji didn’t know exactly how Sing found out about Lao. He hoped for Sing’s sake that it wasn’t with his own eyes. 

The real problem came with his relationship with Yut Lung. While he would never wish knowing what the man had done to him, Ash and Shorter on Sing's conscious, Yut Lung wasn’t safe to be around. Medusa in one retelling of her myth was turned into a monster to protect herself. Eiji wondered if the snakes in her hair mimicked the intricate braids Yut Lung donned. Sing always talked about him in a certain admiration. Not brought upon by actions. Everything Sing had said was in respect to his clear emotions. Eiji couldn’t believe that. 

As much as Eiji would love to compliment his ability to read people, whatever poison Yut Lung had been trained in seeped into those who met him. Whatever beautiful flowers had been wrapped up in Sing’s mind to follow the man were far different than the bruised vines with thorns that seemed to be against Eiji. 

Thorns were still only a way to protect the plant, which may have been the most infuriating part. How could Eiji hate something that was broken? 

Yut Lung came to Japan two months ago. The dragon tattoo on the side of his neck no longer carefully hidden, the simple clothes were replaced by extravagance. He came only with an envelope for Sing and a transfer of money. Eiji had been driving away when he walked to the door of Sing’s place. Part of him felt bad for being a second set of eyes to watch with wary, but when no one noticed for the hundredth time he decided it was worth it. 

The politics of what he had left in America were a puzzle that he glued down. The pieces were placed together out of his control, but the image was still clear to him. 

Eiji could've chosen to avoid the man who caused him so much pain. Sing kept his blinds closed almost every hour, and came and went across the world. The dealings of both of their endeavors were kept hushed under threats of gunshots and manipulation. 

As a photographer, Eiji looked for every beauty in daily life. It’s not that he saw the world differently, he only saw the whole of it. He moved up the ranks past Ibe after he had gotten back. Once you’ve seen everything worked so hard to be covered in layers of cement there was no turning back to high saturation. Eiji couldn’t just leave another living contradiction without contemplation. Yut Lung, the youngest of seven, and now the most influential of two was more than enough for a camera to capture. 

Eiji wondered when he started to see things in terms of photographs. Everything was in the past, carefully edited to be appealing to the masses, at the expense of the true scene. Beauty wasn’t in the eye of the beholder, it was in the shadows where blacks were made too crisp to be seen. He tried to never think back to the nights in the mansion. No photographs covered the walls. They were all murals with purposeful brush strokes. The thing that made each painting so timeless was the same place he couldn’t leave. 

Kumi had given him a bracelet for success when he had gotten back and was heading back to college. He wore it with a stitched smile on his face, but the moment she left he ripped it off his wrists. He slept on the couch that night. 

No one asked what had happened. Eiji didn’t want them to, pity and sympathy were a line he wouldn’t walk. Each apology and attempt at comfort felt like walls being placed around him. Homes sheltered from the weather, but Eiji wanted to feel the wind in his hair. The wind was his release. 

That mansion had so many rooms. As much as he had complimented Ash at the time for being able to navigate, it scared Eiji how easily he could remember the floor plan. He knew the location of every room he had been in his time there. The two guards who dropped him off in the secluded wing, waiting to be rescued, had told him he was ‘off for the night.’ He couldn’t be off. They didn’t give him water. The thirst blended in numbness after a while, but the still bleeding knife wounds felt like they never dried. He couldn’t drink anything he didn’t make himself for a while after that. It seems the drugs weren’t limited to military purposes in Goldzines eyes. 

It was hilarious that after two years of chasing after a drug made for the sole purpose of control, Eiji never picked up a master list of ingredients to replicate any semblance of that for himself. Every night Kumi came over the one faucet of control he thought he had was taken away by her watchful eyes as they both ate their meals in silence. Ibe’s constant calls for clients interrupted any silence. 

He should have been grateful for the support. Most people's family wouldn't even bother ‘Selfish,’ played on repeat in his mind. 

Sing came to visit him despite the ever-rising prices of plane tickets. So as much as Sing was a friend the more people surrounded him, the more walls went up, the less wind that blew through, the harder it was to getaway. 

  * -



It had been two days after Max’s impromptu visit. Two days since he decided he was going to see Eiji. It was strange for Ash to not run headfirst into things, especially regarding Eiji. But Max decided he would bring Jessica and Micheal along as a family vacation, and he wanted Ash to go with them. There were too many people for it to be subtle and not enough to be enough to protect them, but Max reassured him that anyone who would want to didn’t know he was alive. Of course, he wanted - even if wanted was not a strong enough word - to see Eiji again. Max kept talking about fantasies of them being able to be kids again and showing pictures of all the tourist spots in Japan. Something in Ash’s gut told him it wasn’t going to be that simple. Eiji was safe, would he give that up to meet with someone who lied to him for two years? 

Whenever Ash pictured Eiji’s life in Japan it was filled with his charismatic smile, endless piles of natto, and shy encounters with everyone around him. He talked about his country in such high regard. The shrines must have been calling his name. His family must have missed him too. Ash going there would do nothing but disrupt whatever life Eiji had built in those two years. 

Ash picked up the phone to call Max. Max answered with what Ash could only assume was a cheesy smile plastered on his face. 

“Ash! You’re finally starting a conversation, I must be dreaming.”

“I’m not going,” he deadpanned before Max could finish. 

The energy of the call immediately dropped. “Ash.” A sigh. “We’ve been over this.”

“And I’m making up my mind.” His hair felt brittle as Ash twirled it around his fingers. 

“When did you decide to not go?” Max inquired. 

“That’s not important old man.”

“I’ll take that as ‘today.’ I’m coming over there. Whether you like it or not.” Ash was about to comment when Max added, “you haven’t left that cheap town in a year Ash.”

“You don’t know what you're talking about.”

“See you in five Ash.”

Max hung up, and Ash sat down again on the couch. His suitcase was partially packed next to him. A few books, some clothes, and a letter addressed to Eiji. It felt right to give one back. Ash had written thousands of words on different scientific topics, but his mind blanked at every sentence in that thing. It wasn’t nearly as poetic as Eiji’s was, but he hoped it would be enough to bridge the gap, at least a little.

  * -



Dear Max,

You were never one for long speeches, and I admired that about you. You acted and didn’t feel the need to explain yourself in convoluted sentences. You drove to see your son even when I could tell you knew Jessica would tear you apart. You’re lucky Ibe-san was with us. You dropped everything to run around the country in search of something any normal person would have dropped. 

My father died when I was young. You remind me of him. You are a shield to everyone you meet, kind enough to draw them in, and stable enough to keep them there. Jessica and Micheal are lucky to have you with them. 

You never explained yourself so I’m not going to either. You’ve seen enough that maybe you understand. 

Goodbye Max. Jessica and Micheal need you. Don’t let them slip away. 

  * -



Max pulled into the parking lot again. Ash didn’t bother to open the door this time. Max stood in the doorway and stared down at him and the open suitcase. Whatever expression Ash had on his face dropped the pleasantries of their conversation immediately. 

“I know you’ll never listen to me. You have this stupid need to decide everything by yourself, but Ash this,” he swept his arms to the disheveled apartment, “isn’t healthy.”

“Neither is a bullet wound to the stomach.” Ash’s voice was quiet and his head was tucked and aimed towards his shoes. 

“You know you're safe, why do you hold on to that?”

“I can’t know that he’s safe unless I’m not near him.” Eiji could have died and it would have been his fault. He still felt the drop in his stomach whenever an ambulance passed outside. 

“You saw the video and you're still going to play that card? I’m older than you so listen, I’ve never seen people who are the same as you two. Whatever you two have isn’t something that is ending as long as I have something to do about it.” Max declared it as if it were fact. Maybe it was. 

“I-”

Max’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He held up a finger and mouthed sorry before placing it to his ear. 

“Oi Ibe! Ho-” Even from the few feet Ash sat away from them he could hear Ibe’s panicked breaths and the sound of his car engine. 

“Max, I didn’t know who to call.” The car came to a stop and Ibe disguised his anger in a sharp whisper. “Fuck.”

“Slow down. What happened?” Max looked to him nervously. Ash stood up in return and walked towards him. With a quick press of the button, Ibe’s voice filled the room. 

“Eiji. I can’t find him.” A loud car honk blared, and the sound of tires added pounds of tension to the air. “ _ Shit _ .”

“Can’t you just call him Ibe?”

“No, he-,” the small sounds of sniffling over the phone made Ash’s hair stand on end. “He left fucking notes Max. No one has seen him. His apartments empty, and I  _ can’t find him _ .”


	4. Procession of waves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suicide in passing reference, much more detailed talk of death so be careful. I know these chapters are short but i normally write in one sitting and this about the max i can do without loosing braincells. that being said once everyone is in japan the chapters will be bulkier. thank you to everyone who reads this. it means so much to me, and i absolutely enjoy being able to share my stories with you. hope you enjoy! <3

It was nearing the end of her shift. Twelve consecutive hours of changing IV’s, taking calls, and filling out charts. All of her patients had been there for a few days. Enough time for them to settle and for the shock that; while not the best for their mental health, kept them calm. Now they were growing bored with the sterile rooms and portioned meals. The nurses' call button blended in with the sound of heart monitors. 

There was not enough coffee for this shit.

Isis walked out with an odd mush of the hospital food on a tray from Jonathan Trip’s room. Her scrubs felt heavy. Something about the salines in the air always weighed down whatever piece of fabric had the unfortunate fate to end up here. 

Iris liked her job. Of course, she did. She didn’t go through medical school, to suffer through sleep deprivation, in pain patients, and a metric shit ton of paperwork if she didn’t want to help people. Iris moved to Japan for this job, she cherished each released patient even if her Japanese was still clumsy the first few months. 

‘20 more minutes,’ she thought to herself with a sighed smile. Lin sat at the counter and gave a smile as Iris placed two more patient sheets down. 

This was nothing like the hospital drama’s she grew up on. None of the doctors had flowing hair and perfect makeup, there was hardly any staff bonding and the little that occurred was over shared complaints of patients. None of the patients had less than one percent of diseases that had always fascinated Iris. The unknown was much more entertaining than an oversupply of glucose or a broken arm. 

With an arm resting on the counter Iris took a moment to jot down what she needed to do when she got home. Take out the trash, scrounge up something resembling a dinner, take her medication, put her scrubs in the wash - the unfortunate result of a man who tried to rip his IV out - and try to sleep before another 6am shift. The phone rang behind her, and Lin - the only competent receptionist on staff- grabbed it repeating the same mantra all of them used. 

‘Hello this is Tottori University Hospital. What can I help you with?’

Iris hadn’t known Lin long. She transferred to the hospital a month ago, but Iris had formed a close connection with her. Of all the people Iris worked with Lin was the only one she would consider a friend. She also had the unfortunate habit of being a bit too open. They had too many secluded rant-sessions during the off hours. The spot behind the pediatrics ward was their meeting place. The walls were colorful enough to feel like a new place, but they were close enough to their actual jobs to run back if needed. Iris would sometimes call the hospital. She always used the same pseudonym, and the two would go meet whenever Lin looked ready to explode at her latest caller. This is why when Lin’s face dropped and morphed into an expression of panic Iris stared intently and listened to the caller’s voice. 

The shuffling of attendants and the few requests for supplies being shouted in the distance made it harder to discern. 

“I found a boy, he was in the water. I- umm.” The caller must have shifted. A loud crackling sound filled the sound where their voice was. It stopped after a moment. The sound of waves was obvious in the background. “Fuck, he’s not breathing.” The woman sounded out of breath and their pants muddled the end of each word. “What do I do?”

The confusion etching Lin’s face grew deeper. “Did you call 199?”

“I did,” she confirmed, an edge of irritation sharpened the syllables. “The ambulance was too far away, a- a fire or something. I- we’re right by the hospital.” Iris had heard of that. A building downtown had an electrical incident. If the ambulance was still there it must have been worse than Iris thought. 

“Where is your exact location?” Lin asked, sparing a glance at Iris. 

“The beach, I think it’s the neurology department.” A pause. The caller shifted again. “Yeah, it’s the beach closest to that. We’re by the tourist sign.” 

Iris held up her pager to Lin’s face, eyes glancing between the two as a question. Lin nodded, rattling off the instructions for CPR to the woman. Iris pressed the call button and ran to the hospital’s ambulance.   
-

Ash hadn’t experienced many moments of true panic. When his calm resolve failed it was normally replaced by two options. Rage or silence. The odd combination of the two was enough to keep either a straight head, or do enough action that the original problem was overturned by a new scenario. 

Ibe’s call was the exception. 

The entire foundation Ash had built to occupy this apartment with him was built on Eiji’s happiness. The thought of him not smiling with a cheesy grin at every little detail, not pouting a child-like wonder, not radiating whatever pure light he seemed to throw out in the world couldn’t be true. He promised forever and kept a mantra of persistence in determining nods when words weren’t enough. Eiji couldn’t just leave, he never had. 

Max stood mouth agape as Ibe continued. 

“He was fine when I saw him Max, other than that song he seemed perfectly happy.” Ash’s stomach curled. He could have been there two days ago. Two days. Enough time to make sure this never happened. 

“How did I not notice? What if I don’t find him in time? What if it’s already too late?”

Ibe’s voice was a dam ready to overflow. The water seeped into Ash’s apartment and Max was drowning in it. A few small “wha’s” and “ah’s” were the closest he could create to act as a consultation. 

“Ibe,” Ash started. The voice normally used only for his gang was too familiar as he continued. “Call the local hospitals, you aren’t going to be able to find him, his best chance is that someone saw.” 

Ash cursed himself. If this was New York he could narrow down the places Eiji would go to, he could avoid the hoards of people around him, but Japan was a tightrope, and his only string was someone who didn’t even know that Ash Lynx was still alive.

“Call the police too. You hyperventilating isn’t going to save him.”

“Ash?” Ibe asked quietly. The panic of the room was replaced by an inkling of mystery. 

“Not the time, call them Ibe” he snapped back. Max continued to look at his phone in horror, Ash grabbed it, ending the call and stuffing it into his back pocket. He grabbed Max’s wrist and pulled him to the door. 

“What are you doing Ash?” Max asked as the door swung open. Ash took the steps two at a time. 

“We’re going to Japan.” He took a second to look back at the older man, slowly releasing his iron grip. “Your coming is up to you but I need to be there.” His eyes challenged the horizon, the sun setting behind the two of them. What could have been a beautiful red was replaced by murderous intent. To what, Ash didn’t know. 

Max nodded in agreement, the urgency and fear still remained but was backed by a charisma that only Max seemed to possess. “Nearest airport is west. I’ll call Jessica on the way up.” The unpacked suitcase remained behind. 

Max tossed his keys over the top of the car. Ash caught them and slipped into the driver's seat, starting the ignition and pulling out of the parking lot in a fluid motion that rivaled the storm in his mind. Ash handed over the phone and focused on the road signs starting to pass by. The sounds of Max’s explanation were infused by the type of silence that isn’t so silent. The type of unmoving image that crawls closer. All Ash knew is that if he drove enough to chase the sunset he might- would make it there in time. His default setting was to see the worse. Plot out the future in a road map where cities were marked by landmines. He swore he would protect Eiji. His enemies called him the Devil, but walks through hell meant nothing without a brighter horizon separating the two. Devils were described as fallen angels, but that was only the aftermath. Devils were just a reiteration of revenge for their angels. Heaven and hell were across that sunset, so for now he drove without looking back. 

-

Dear Sing,

I write to you mostly because you're the most likely to be able to receive this one way or another. I wasn’t going to write to anyone at first. My last letter ended so well, and everyone I would have addressed this to doesn’t need a recap or explanation. You’ve seen enough to fill out psychology charts with blood-stained ink. 

For someone who is so resistant against any emotions being pushed on you, you are still the most likely to understand. I hate that you would ever have to understand the purpose of this letter. Shorter’s death was withheld from you, you lost your brother over a situation you never chose and that you didn’t know the logistics of. Even if the information isn’t anything special to me. Even if I was weak enough to crumble under the least amount of shit we’ve all seen, you deserve to have the full explanation. 

You were the character in a book who was only introduced to fill the gaps, or at least you thought you were. You lived in the shadows of those around you, and instead of the comforting darkness should have brought, you fought nightmares with no face. And yet you walked out of hell backward and made an entire world separate from your past. You moved on with everything that happened, and not in the way of forgetting, letting it fade into the background. You walk hand in hand with sorrow, intertwined fingers to a world people theorize about. Where to go once the worst part ends. I’ve found my answer Sing. Living frame by frame of various photos only ends well for movie stars. They had a script to follow, and a character built to withstand the elaborate sets. Whatever is after all of this Sing could never be photographed. I can exist in something with no record. 

You found a way to get both worlds. There are no dates scratched into your bones that quiver whenever you acknowledge them, but you can write them down in history books with the hunger of rebellion that would never settle for solitude. 

I’ll lend you my hand from the other side, and maybe I’ll meet you there eventually when the sun rises on skyscrapers that don’t need tinted glass.

Goodbye Sing. I’m glad I met you.


	5. Royal skies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will finally be more or less in "present" time- aka there might be a trace of a plot. who would have thoughttt
> 
> tw for this chapter: heavier conversation on suicide, be careful yall
> 
> hope you all enjoy

Everything was ready. The apartment was spotless and what remained of his things were stuffed and labeled inboxes. The water stopped running and the lights were cut off, if not for the notes left on his table, the apartment formerly occupied by Eiji Okumura looked vacant. Kumi went out of town for her friend's party, Ibe-san had a new client requesting photos at a local museum across town. Finals had ended, and with it, the scholarship that had pulled Eiji through left no traces. 

Eiji read an article once about a man who went completely off the grid. He didn’t understand it at the time, but with his phone's battery removed and discarded a fraction of the weight on his shoulders disappeared. The man bought bulk-sized supplies and left for the desolate areas of the world. He was found dead a few weeks later. Human’s used to be used to death. As much as Eiji valued those who had lived, the stacks of incense formerly in his bedroom a testament, the modern obsession with everything from a period where a cut on the knee was a casket must mean something. Old paintings of sorrow and pain captured the eye before landscapes. Haunting music brought chills dancing along the skin. 

Departing from the world was not an illness caused by a war of chemicals, rather it was just each past life yearning to go back to the staple of its time. Where heart monitors could be replaced by bedside lullabies as a new reached out. At least that’s what he told himself. It justified the end result more than the former.

Eiji wore the jacket from the first time he truly met Shorter. He was looking to find something then. All explorers had their gear. 

It was late. The last traces of the sun left the world in a purgatory between night and day, where the street lights flickered in indecisiveness only to have their efforts blend into the remaining light. Movies always portrayed that time as eerie. In a way it was, stars seemed like tricks of the light if the sun was still out. The shades of purple that filled the sky reminiscent of royalty, and even if it had been decades since the last blade fell from wooden frames by royal frames, it wasn’t something easily forgotten. 

He walked down the street with hands stuck firmly in his pockets, the only sound was his own humming under his breath. The miles flew under his feet before he stood in front of a procession of waves guarded by now gray sand. The moon was a tiny sliver hanging in the sky and butchered by the waves. The full moon was gorgeous by all accounts but the offseason felt more human. Or as human as a rock in space could get. 

He pestered Ash and his whole gang about wearing their shoes inside, but after the third close call having the feeling of being on the run tapped on his feet became normal. He buried his sneakers in the sand until the weight grounded him enough where he could almost feel the ocean waves that were still ten feet away. 

He had pictured this day for a while now. He expected his mind to be filled with racing thoughts and a huge display of emotion before he met his end. But he felt calm. If whatever came next was just like this he would be secured in his own decision. His original plan was a few blocks over. A bridge overlooked a ravine. Lovers carved initials marked the rails. That part of the city was abandoned, graffiti tracing out tales of triumph and betrayal. 

His mother told him to never go to those parts of town, something about the impure gray on the sidewalks scared her. She preached the ideals of everyone being equal, a strange contradiction for every set of hands that bent metal into shape or sketched outlines of support. He loved his mother even if her influence on Eiji was a direction sign to this beach. Through all the horror stories he’d heard about parents, the scars left and the physical reactions to raised voices ever-present, whatever small amount of pressure he felt should have been nothing. Right? Ancient Egyptians believed the souls of their dead were measured and judged. If a family was flesh and blood how much of their abuse tipped the scales? How long did the competition have to run before all winners were given participation ribbons and sent home with gold stars? Whatever the answer, if there even was one, it wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear. 

His wrist clocked rang out with its mark of the hour. Midnight. 

“Good morning,” Eiji whispered out to the hidden sun that was somewhere across the world but also right below the ocean. He kicked the sand off his shoes and walked to meet the tides. 

‘I don’t like being approached from behind’

Eiji dragged his hand across the sand, masking the rectangular imprints with disorganized swipes. 

The sun was millions of miles away and yet still settled beneath the tides, and all he could do was chase it and let the light fill his lungs. 

  * \- 



There was a high probability that Ash was way over the speed limit. Max was clutching onto the handle of the passenger door and kept shooting anxious glances at him. Even if the old man’s fingers might be strained by the time they made it to the airport, it didn’t mean anything if the minutes saved zipping down the highway got Ash to Eiji’s side faster. The traffic was adding pounds of rage to Ash. Having a set unit of measure for an abstract feeling felt only right for his life. Any day under five pounds was a blessing, and whatever fucked combination of hours today was needed was a unit that could represent this. Scratch pounds, tons was the unit. Five tons, 10,000 pounds of rage felt justifiable. 

An hour ago he slipped in panic, but every emotion of confusion all converged back to anger. He slammed his palm against the horn and bit his tongue at the truck in front of him. The driver would never hear him so why bother with curses. 

Three miles, that was all. The unmoving array of cars in front of him felt like a cruel joke. He could run to the airport faster than the cars could ever go in these conditions. 

“Max.”

Max’s head flicked toward Ash. “Hm?” 

“Get out of the car,” Ash instructed, already stepping out of his side. “We can make it the rest of the way.”

Max groaned and did the same. The cars behind them honked and Ash flipped them off. “I lose ten years of my life everytime I listen to you,” Max added, shaking his head. 

Green eyes narrowed on the older man. “You’ll lose a lot more if you continue to be an ass.” Max raised his hands in mock surrender and turned to walk towards the airport. Ash stayed locked in place behind him. 

The irony of that exchange donned on Max in an unpleasant lurch in his stomach. “I’m sorry, let’s just go.” His thumb pointed towards the stacks of glass that was the airport. “Can’t promise I’ll be able to run the entire way though.”

The fear that slipped into Ash’s eyes was replaced by the raw spirit of competitiveness. Even if it had been two years and Ash was well past being a child, the small moments where he knew he could still subconsciously relaxed made him want to wipe Max’s knowing look off his face. 

It took longer than Ash had anticipated reaching the doors of the airport. He hadn’t properly run in months, and Max was never the peak of athleticism. With beads of sweat on both of them, they pushed their way to the counter. The man working looked concerningly down at the two of them for a moment. 

Ash stared down the teller. “Two tick-” 

“Jessica’s coming too,” Max interjected after a quick look at his phone. 

Ash liked Jessica. She was snarky but caring enough to feel legitimate. That did not equate to wanting her to be there. Whatever was waiting for him in Japan he didn’t want another pair of eyes looking at him. “If there’s a flight leaving before she gets here I am not waiting,” he declared. 

Max turned to the teller. The man looked up from the computer. “Three tickets to your next flight to Japan.” He nodded and began to type. 

“What part of not waiting did you not understand?” The lady behind them in line walked to the next row. 

“While you were busy staring daggers into every car on the highway I looked up the flights. We still have an hour and a half before it takes off.” Max raised his phone with a complicated table with an all-knowing expression on his face. 

Ash hated this man more than he let on but he was angrier with himself for taking the time to actually check. “You ran three miles before you told me that,” he deadpanned back. 

“Being locked in a car surrounded by people is not a good combo for anyone, especially you.”

Ash only grunted in response, returning his attention to the man behind the counter. He slid three boarding passes to Ash and Max brought out his credit card. Whatever terms and conditions bullshit the man rattled off, Ash tuned out. None of the people around him looked suspicious. They all had luggage with them and tired eyes. No one stood by any major exits, no groups of people with eyes on him. ‘You’re safe.’

His internal monologue was not convincing. 

Max stepped back with a slump and a tired thumbs up. The forced optimism was not welcomed, but it was at least understood. Ash started walking towards security, but Max flicked his head to the door. Jessica ran up to her husband and shared a sympathetic glance at Ash. She was the only one who had luggage. Their new house was much closer to the airport, it still seemed uncanny to see her. 

She noticed Ash’s stare. “I bought stuff for you two idoits. I-umm” she fumbled with her purse before bringing out a small book. “I didn’t know what you liked, but here.” She pushed it into Ash’s hands. “It’s a long flight after all.”

“Thank you Jessica.” A smile pushed through his nerves. “I still stand by my opinion that Max doesn’t deserve you.”

“Don’t remind her kid.” Max swatted at his arm. 

Eiji would have loved to see them act like the family they had almost grown into. ‘Eiji does love it,’ Ash corrected himself. They were going to Japan to see him alive. They had to be. He didn’t know what they would do if otherwise. What he would do? Almost every person who had threatened him ended up with a bullet in them.

The line to security took almost all of their time. When they all slipped their shoes back on they had five minutes until the flight left. Anxiety was gasoline to them as they ran to the check-in desk and in their seats. 

‘You better be okay oni-chan,’ Ash thought staring out the window. If he held on to that then maybe everything would be okay. 

  * -



Dear Ibe-san, 

It’s strange to think we met with a photograph. What if the exact moment in time hadn’t been captured? I never would have met you. 

People like to comment on how young I look, and while maybe I have grown out of that by now, I don’t think it’s entirely because of my appearance. You exude a level of comfort that people can’t help but compare to their own childhood. 

A picture says a thousand words so I’m sparing you the apologizes and praises. I know a single photograph isn’t enough to make up for this, nothing would be. 

Goodbye Ibe-san. 

You wanted to let me fly again. 

So let me go, please. 


	6. The fallout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: suicidal ideation, references to medical things, references to drowning, references to sexual assault. all of this stuff in imbedded in metaphors so it's not direct, but still there, so be careful. 
> 
> Thank you everyone who reads, kudos, and comments on this story. You all make me so happy, and give me so much inspiration 
> 
> hope you enjoy this chapter (the longest so far.) look out for another update tonight, I'm about 85% sure I'm writing another chapter because i got way too into this one

Fourteen hours. They had spent fourteen hours in the sky, traveling thousands of miles. Something about flying seemed to distort time. Maybe it was humanity being used to looking up and seeing the sun, that when the cloud cover traveled with you whatever grounding force was there was swept away with cheap airline food. Whatever it was, the flight was a nightmare to Ash. The person next to him chewed their gum so loudly that Ash couldn’t focus on anything but the rhythmic grinding. A metronome that Ash wanted to snap in half. He ended up with a middle seat, not surprising given they bought the tickets the same day. Max and Jessica managed to sit together by the emergency exit- apparently, no one else wanted that responsibility. What Ash would have given to have full freedom to push open that door. He could leave the moment they got to Japan if he wanted to. Instead, he sat staring at the book Jessica gave him. Every time he tried to open it he heard Eiji’s familiar voice. 

“Are you really going to read these all today?”

Nothing felt real. The reality that Eiji could very well be dead by the time they arrived seemed like a bad dream. Something resting on the cusps of sleep and consciousness. Part of Ash wanted to forget it, let the unknown dissolve from a mystery back to its original form of denial. The other part kept Eiji’s song playing on repeat in his mind. His fingers shook with pins and needles, and his eyes zoomed in and out of the red seat covers in front of him. Ash wouldn’t believe anything had happened until he saw it for himself, and maybe not even then. 

_ I wonder if Eiji felt the same when he found out about me. _

Ash didn’t sleep the entire time. He expected as such but the grittiness of consciousness for that whole time and the ringing in his ears made every second before he could run off the plane that much more unbearable. The pilot announced the temperature and time. Ash didn’t register it. 

It was funny. He was praised for seeing everything. Holding every string in an iron tight grip so no loose ends could be seen. But here he was, being snapped back to existence when Max and Jessica walked past him. He walked as fast as he could without drawing too much attention from the staff until all three of them entered the airport. 

Max made a show of cracking his back. Ash had been given a multitude of subjects to read about at Goldzine's orders. The abundant displays of carefreeness and optimism were a coping mechanism. Of all the different varieties Max still managed to choose the one that infuriated Ash the most. They walked- although Ash was closer to jog- as Max pulled out his phone to call Ibe. The airport was relatively small. In no time they reached the main doors. Sets of benches lined the outside and Jessica motioned for them to all sit-down. Her face was painted with quiet determination. Her hands glided over websites a muddled mix of Japanese and English as she attempted to request a taxi on some sketchy website. The obnoxious ringing tone finally stopped from where Max was pacing.

“Ibe!” Max practically shouted into the receiver. 

There was a parking lot to their left with the bottom floor mostly devoid of cars, and entirely of people. They hurried to gather in a circle in the back of the new building so Max could place his phone on speaker. 

Max breathed out a sigh. “What’s the news Ibe?”

Ash had decided twenty minutes into the flight that he would be stoic until he knew something. He’d given his gang the same instructions over and over, but whatever superiority he had over them had little effect on him. 

“Someone found him. I’m, I’m at-,” he paused and mumbled something in Japanese under his breath. “Tottori University Hospital. I haven’t heard anything. I’m not family so. He’s-” Hearing Ibe’s voice crack was a strange experience. While the man was no stranger to emotion his rhetoric still remained that of a reporter. “He’s alive, I mean they said they were working on him, so…”

Jessica was the first one to speak up. “The taxi’s here.” Lo and behold a car was waiting by the entrance of the parking garage. It was smaller than any model in America. “We’ll be there in fifteen.”

“You're in Japan?” Ibe rattled off from the other end. “It hasn’t even been a day,” he added. Whatever traces of disbelief were there soon subsided. 

He was alive. Eiji was alive. The awkwardness of delayed action wore off. “It’s Eiji,” Ash said simply. “It doesn’t matter.”

Ibe seemed to take this as an acceptable answer and let out a soft hum of agreement. Jessica placed her bag in the backseat of the cab and pointed a map in reconciliation of the language barrier. The driver nodded and started the engine. Max and Ash walked to the backseat and slipped into their respective sides. Ash’s legs felt cramped. Apart from the already suffocated feeling the airplane put on him, the random bottles on the floor threatened to crunch at any movement. Jessica unofficially became the navigator and sat in the front. Ibe’s end of the conversation had gone cold, replaced by the tension that was only built before finding the right words. 

“I’m sorry to ask this, but how the hell is he alive?” Max took the liberty of taking the phone off speaker before the latter part of the sentence could reach the driver's ears. 

“Lot’s of  _ favors _ .”

The little that Ash knew of the Japanese man was his discomfort of breaking the laws. A seemingly normal mindset for most people. He must have understood that whatever went on behind the scenes wasn’t safe or comfortable to say out loud. 

Another few moments of silence passed. The driver made two lefts, and then a right. All of the chain stores in this main part of the city looked like a doppelganger of the American versions. Everything was painted in brighter colors but the bouncing in Ash’s leg sent an immediate request to dull them. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?” The clear start of ‘me’ was replaced by the sharper plural. It was even worse that Ibe broke the silence. He never started conversations, only adding insightful comments after the baseline explanation had already been established. 

Max’s declaration of “It was the only way for him to be safe,” and Ash’s “I don’t know” competed to answer. Max looked over in sympathy, but Ash simply looked out of the sea of cars. The number of happy greetings and friendly faces at all those who came off their flights. 

Ibe took the hint. “I’ll see you there.”

Max hung up. 

It was a long fifteen minutes.

  * \- 



When Eiji woke up surrounded by white tiles, the smell of disinfectant, and the brittle feeling of a hospital gown. All of his limbs felt numb. Not unfeeling, just the absence of it. The feeling wasn’t of not being able to touch, not feeling the pulsing of movement, but the cavern where it should have been. If he was here then it means he failed. He didn’t know how to feel about it. He didn’t know how to feel. Whatever drugs they must have given him made every train of thought drift of the tracks. The tracks must have melted back into their original base metals. Maybe even back to their ores. There were no windows except for a tiny slit too small for any human to fit through and a thick cross-hatching of metal bars. That’s where the tracks must have gone. 

He had a mask over his face, the steady and streaming supply of oxygen felt like dry ice. If he tried to breathe out the cold only spread down further and faster. The machines at his side beeped with intensity as he tried to resist the cold. He finally let it and felt the goosebumps on his skin take over. They felt like tiny mountains being pushed by oceans. Whatever intricate metaphors he crafted for himself were blown out of proportion. Maybe that’s the reason why hospital rooms were white. It allowed the imagination to run wild. Psychiatric patient's symptoms could be amplified and their success stories after being released would be a transaction of gold to the doctors. He used to love daydreaming. He could feel the wind in his hair without the bugs and boa constrictor that his hair became. He could feel the sun without the risk of cancer. Now he just wanted it to stop. People talk about two paths. They both move forward, one was high and one was low. The only paths Eiji could walk now were a mountainside backward where the leaves never fell and any footprints that would have been there were cemented into fossils. 

Eiji heard someone arguing outside his room. He missed the beach. It was so much calmer. The nightstand next to him had an almost clear plastic cup. Glass must be too risky. The water in it didn’t radiate stillness even if it was in fact not moving. ‘The ocean was going to hate that cup,’ he thought. Glass at least made art after a venture in the water. The plastic settled as geometric tattoos in marine lungs. 

He knew he shouldn’t be awake. The chart that hung in front of him wasn’t filled out yet. He felt numb but if he wanted to he could get up and try and morph his way through the window. He could detach whatever nutrients they were feeding him through that gap in his forearm. 

A set of abandoned flowers sat on the nightstand a few paces away from him. There was a name scribbled on brown paper that he couldn’t make out. The bed it should have been a gift for was messy and cold. The flowers couldn’t have been there for long. The petals still defied the push of gravity at their pink soaked edges, and the stems rivaled the support poles of the building. The water in the vase had serenity in the few fallen leaves that mixed with it. 

Eiji turned his head so he could stare at the flowers. His mask wasn’t on anymore. He must have moved it at some point. The noise outside of his door got louder and after whatever amount of time passed between his blinks the wooden frame was thrown open. At least he assumed it did. Something banged in the wall and sent vibrations to his headrest, and the footsteps that were previously muffled echoed like spoons on glass. Despite the shadow of a person (people?) being cast on him, Eiji didn’t look. If they were there they would want to talk. In the two years, he had to talk with himself he never learned how to say it to anyone else. After two years of nobody forcing him to, and the painkillers running through his veins, whatever he said would be unrestricted. Maybe if he ignored them they would go away. It worked every time they did it to him. 

“Eiji?”

Maybe he was dead after all. The brain malfunctioned when the body collapsed. A hospital must have made more sense than an ocean. His brain offered IV’s as consolation for seaweed around his legs. He must be dead because the voice sounded exactly like Ash. The last time they saw each other was at a hospital, who’s to say Ash wasn’t still there. He turned his head to see him. The same white tee shirt and jeans he always adorned. The red converses. His glasses were set slightly lower so the tops of his eyes weren’t blurred by the light. 

“Ash?” Eiji asked back. A smile slithered up Ash’s face as he knelt down next to the bed. He raised his hand but hesitated as it was in the air. Eiji smiled back and Ash collapsed against him, arms wrapped behind Eiji’s neck. 

“It worked,” Eiji breathed out as he felt the fabric above Ash’s shoulders. 

Ash tensed and pulled away. “What?” 

Eiji did his best to pull himself up. His chest throbbed with the motion but he suppressed the wince he wanted to express. Why did it hurt? Ash was here, and that meant everything should be over. 

He looked around again. He was in the same room. The flowers still sat in the corner. “Where am I Ash?”

“A hospital,” he said.

“I- I know that. But  _ where? _ ” The afterlife was supposed to be a different subset of reality. Why the hell was everything so real if mind control could exist in the ashes of a building why wasn’t the end something better than this? He felt the air leave his lungs and felt the salt take its place in the cracks. Why did he still feel like this?

Whatever light had been in Ash’s eyes seeped out. “Do you think you're alive right now?”

Eiji swallowed. His throat was so dry. “I mean you're here.”

“You said it ‘worked’ earlier. Did you...” Eiji could hear the panicked breaths increasing next to him. Ash always looked at his hands when he felt guilty. Counting the callouses left by gunshots was his constant. A new one couldn’t form overnight, and the grit and ache that each new one held felt like a small payment to each headshot. 

“Eiji, I-” Ash slipped his hand out so his wrist was facing Eiji. He guided Eiji’s hand to it. A few seconds passed and the rhythmic beats of Ash’s heartbeat shook Eiji out of it. 

Eiji felt like he was going to throw up. Not the way you can feel the tingle in your throat, or the way your throat closes, but the sustained and rising sensation of lightheadedness. “No, no,” he cried out batting away Ash’s hand. His palm felt empty again. “You’re dead Ash.”

“You guys can come in,” Ash beckoned to the door the familiar detachment soaked in once again. 

“Who?” Eiji couldn’t help but feel his stomach drop again when purple hair didn’t greet him from the wooden frame. He’d only known Skip for a day but he still felt the coldness of isolation when neither of them appeared. 

Instead, Max, Jessica, and Ibe stood staring at him. 

Eiji felt the same impulse to stare at his hands. Some of the ink remained under his nails. He didn’t find solace in the paler than usual skin and blue-tinted fingers. 

“Ei-chan!” Ibe’s smile almost distracted from the dark circles under his eyes. “I’m so glad your okay.” He reached down to hug him but Eiji’s hands reacted first. Eiji somehow to feel the coldness of his hands more when they pushed against Ibe’s arm. 

“Don’t. Please.” Eiji hated how frail his voice sounded as it cracked. He hated that his stomach was fighting the stillness he was so close to having. He hated that his brain was too foggy to do anything about it. 

Max and Jessica stood in the back; hands intertwined. Their looks of sadness were too much for Eiji to look at. He would normally write paragraphs in his mind about the way each muscle held pain and memories but he couldn’t stand to look at them long enough to do that. 

It didn’t work, the entire point was for him to be gone without a trace. Swim off with the ocean and meet Ash halfway in the green reflection on the sea. But Ash was alive. He was here and Eiji couldn’t handle that. The nightmares he had of the library morphing into a cemetery, of each gun pressed to his head being held by Ash - a marionette of every enemy they faced. 

Tears fell into his lap but he couldn’t feel them. The closest part of him to the ocean and Eiji could only register the warmth for a moment before it cooled in the air-conditioned room. 

The hospital wristbands felt like ropes, the exposed backs of the hospital gown made him want to hide. The door was still open and nurses with flowing black hair passed. The flowers on the nightstand may as well have been wine glasses. The red liquid inside moved in a whirlpool. His body felt the same it did that night (did he ever leave?) heavy and compressed. The taste of medicine lingered on his tongue but all he could register was the scent of blood and the feeling of a body against his own. He blacked out before the nurses could get there, and the last image he saw was Ash staring down at him with wide eyes. 


	7. Where do we go from here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: talks of suicide, death, mention of blood, nothing intense, but there. friendly reminder your mental health is more important than a story
> 
> remember when i said, 'oh ill probably write another chapter tonight.' yeah i got tired. but new chapter! woo
> 
> thank you all again for reading

Their cab pulled up the hospital. It wasn’t prestigious by any means, but the flower gardens in the front felt humble. It was very small. The parking lot must have had only thirty cars lined up. Across from the building was a steel structure with various courtyards. The university part of the hospital perhaps? Two people were on lunch breaks, sandwiches in hand and the flow of lighthearted conversation evident. 

Max and Jessica stood and paid the driver. Max grabbed the suitcase and carried it awkwardly to stand next to Ash. Patience wasn’t a virtue Ash possessed, but the bounds of being legally dead meant he was forced to obtain it. After her credit card was slid back into Jessica’s wallet, the group walked through the main doors. Small glass windows surrounded it in a circle. Ibe was in the corner. The magazine he had been holding was slammed back down on the table. He ran over to them. 

He looked like shit. Ash supposed the three of them must look about that same, but seeing Ibe’s hair limp and defeated, clothes wrinkled at odd angles, and glassy eyes was far from pleasant. 

“I can’t believe you flew all the way here and didn’t tell me. A call would’ve been nice.”

Max scratched the back of his head. “We didn’t have much time before the flight left. Plus it was ungodly early here.”

“You say that like Ibe wasn’t also awake the whole time  _ dad.”  _ Ash stated. Ibe nodded, how he managed to make that small of a movement display a forced lack of energy was kind of impressive. 

Jessica cleared her throat. “Any news on him?”

“Oh yes.” Ibe pulled out a small map of what appeared to be the hospital on his phone. “He’s still asleep in room 203.” His finger was placed on one of the maybe dozen or so rooms on the whole floor. 

“Can we see him?” Max asked, taking the phone and inspecting it. The old man really needed glasses. 

Ibe shook his head in resignation. “They said another few hours at the minimum.”

“That’s idoitic,” Ash said staring at the lady at the receptionist's desk. She glanced up at him before going back to typing. 

“It’s the policy no matter how much I wish it wasn’t.”

The resignation that Ibe had injected in him spread to Max and Jessica too quickly. No questioning. They all just took seats and chatted in hushed voices. Ash started to walk off. The left side of the room had a multitude of doors. 

Policy or not he was going to see Eiji.

“Oi, where are you going?” Max boomed. He’d spent too much time with Jessica for his own good. His right hand was placed proudly on his hip, even if an armrest was in the way. 

“Bathroom,” Ash said, turning on his heels to face the group again. “Try not to miss me too much.”

“He hasn’t changed much,” Ibe whispered, even if it was crystal clear to Ash. 

Luckily for him, the bathroom was indeed this direction. Two doors sat at the end of the corridor with three on each wall for staff. Bad choice on the architects part, they were just asking for something to be stolen. He ran his hands over each doorknob. They were all locked. 

The bathroom was empty. The rows of sinks were polished, and the tiles looked too ornate for a public building. On the farthest wall sat a single window. Long enough to span across the majority on the wall, and give or take a foot tall. Ash brought out Max’s keys from his pocket. It’s not like the man had any use for them in Japan. With a few turns, the inside panel popped off. It was light in his hands- most likely plastic. A layer of glass still sat on the wall. The slight yellowish of whatever hardener had been used to adhere the panel to the wall made it easy for Ash to slip one of the keys under and saw away. It took longer than he would have liked. With no locks on the bathroom door, and no way to barricade anyone could theoretically walk in. The panel was loose enough that Ash could slip it out without a sound. He laid both the glass and the plastic in one of the stalls and shut the door. There was no structure underneath the window, so Ash made do with pulling himself up by the bottom ledge and jumping down on the other side. While the front of the building looked neat and orderly, the side was exposed brick with dumpsters and half-empty trucks. Ash ran towards the back of the building. Ibe, Max, and Jessica might be content waiting, but he couldn’t be. He’d settled for waiting for two years. Stories of Eiji’s sprints across town to get to the bridge where he fought Arthur, and the memory of Eiji’s jump played in his mind. Ash had done much worse anyways. 

Max would say the fact that he was nervous about whatever act of rebellion this was, was progress. 

‘Recklessness isn’t the only way to be brave.’

He would hang on to that like a lifeline simply because it was spoken by him. But everything he did for Eiji didn’t feel reckless. It was an instinct. The denial of thoughts and the pure lack of them had a heavy difference only categorized by how much you were willing to lose. 

The back of the hospital had an emergency exit likely reserved only for staff, next to it was a loading dock for whatever supplies the hospital needed. The door was unlocked. Turns out being in a situation when everyone didn’t want you dead made things much easier. 

Room 203. It was just down the hallway.

People talked about the seven stages of grief as if they had a timer attached to each of them. That the moment the clock hit zero it was on to the next one. Whatever Ash was feeling was a tangle of colored wires where the only solution to stop the bomb was to cut all of them. He’d gotten so close. Scissors rested on the plastic covering, the indents of the blades pressure forever etched on the surface. If grief was inevitable. If the bomb were destined to go off, Ash couldn’t be the one to set it off early. 

He stood in front of room 203. A bin held clipboards of information. After a quick glance down both ends of the hallway to see it was empty, Ash grabbed the files. He didn’t know why he did. It was all written in Japanese. Maybe he hoped some silver lining would actually be written in silver ink. Instead, the messy script blended together. 

A woman turned the corner and stared at him. She reprimanded him in a complicated array of vowels that slurred together. She must have taken the puzzled look on Ash’s face as a sign. 

“American?” she asked.

Ash hummed in agreement. 

“You're not supposed to be here without a visitor's pass and a nurse.”

Ash shrugged. “I managed to get past everyone as a visitor, and by the looks of the outfit I would say you are a nurse. I’m all set.” He felt the sense of accomplishment blossom in his chest as the nurse pursed her lips in frustration. “So what do you say, let me see my-” he paused. What was Eiji to him? Someone he forced into moving past his existence, someone who was put in harm's way because of him, but also the only person he felt human around. “Friend,” he settled. 

“Friendship doesn’t mean I know Eiji’s safe with you.” She reached for a pager at her belt. 

“You knew his name. Are you one of his nurses?” Ash didn’t give her time to respond. He took the slight display of tension in her shoulders as a yes. It didn’t seem to be out of any form of intimidation. Eiji charmed almost everyone he met, Ash wouldn’t be surprised if the nurse was a victim too. “Then you know why he’s here.”

“Sir if you don’t leave I’m going to have to call security.”

“I’m the reason he’s here in the first place, so I’m not waiting hours to see him. I’ve been doing that for two fucking years.” The way his throat tingled was the only way he knew he had been yelling. “Please,” his voice softened and he looked at the woman who read as almost expressionless if not for her eyes. They shone with something much stronger than the hallway’s fluorescent lights. “Let me see him.”

“Fine.” She exhaled and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You have five minutes, I tell my guy watching security to focus on this room, and I’m right outside. If you don’t have that crazed look in your eyes when you're done I won’t ban you from the hospital. Got it?”

“Thank you,” Ash replied. He breathed in. As many bad memories, he had in hospitals this had to be the worst. Even the last time Eiji had been here, he felt so close. Their fingertips almost touched. But now standing at the edge of his bed Ash had no idea who Eiji was. Who Eiji was to him. And more importantly who Eiji was to himself. 

The door slipped open in his hands. Even if the same amount of light flowed between each room and the connecting hallways, Eiji’s felt much dimmer. His hair didn’t fall down his face in childlike innocence. It was pushed back from his face in almost the same style he had the night at Goldzine’s party. Eiji was so uncomfortable with his hair like that. Every time the two of them passed a mirror in the subway afterward he would tousle his hair until it returned to its normal look. 

“Eiji?”

Ash didn’t expect a response, but it had worked the last time they saw each other. Eiji’s head was cocked towards the side at an angle that must have been uncomfortable. It took a second of hesitation but the same doe eyes stared back at him in wonder. The transformation of uncaring and distant to fulfillment was astonishing. Eiji’s lips parted, even from where Ash was standing he could tell how chapped they were, but the way they formed around his name, the ‘u’ sound overly expressed made pinpricks form in Ash’s eyes. 

Eiji was alive, and still looked at him the same way he always did. Ash threw himself at Eiji’s side. In those two years, Ash still couldn’t let anyone touch him without flinching, but the habits in his brain died at the sight of the half-smile Eiji gave him. 

Eiji’s head rested on Ash’s shoulder. Ash didn’t care that tears made tiny circles on Eiji’s hospital gown. Eiji felt like flowers. Ash didn’t know why he’d never been fond of them. The chemicals in one were the power behind the drug who’s name still haunted Ash. But whatever beauty and resilience could be associated was the essence of Eiji. 

“It worked,” Eiji practically breathed out after a moment that would never be long enough of comfortable silence. It tickled Ash’s neck. There must have been three different bags of fluids hanging around Eiji. Whatever concoction of drugs the hospital gave to him still couldn’t explain the clarity in his voice. “What?,” Ash asked, pushing his arms back, so they face each other. Ash could feel his legs cramp up at his half-squat so he could be eye-level. He couldn’t bring himself to care. 

“Where am I Ash?” Eiji asked, breaking eye contact for the first time. It sounded like he was pleading. 

“A hospital.” If he didn’t know that was there something else wrong with him? Did something happen? The nurse was just outside. 

“I,” he stammered a little. A piece of black hair fell down his face. “I know that. But  _ where? _ ” It took a second for Ash’s mind to process that. He must know he’s in Japan. He could recognize me so he must have enough memory. 

He left fucking suicide notes. And he woke up in a hospital to see a person he thought was dead. He earned the sympathy of a nurse he likely wasn’t even conscious enough to talk to. 

“Do you think you’re alive right now?” Ash asked. If Eiji would do some ridiculously innocent display Ash could move past this conversation. Ash could imagine it. Eiji’s head would tilt ever so slightly to the side. He’d say something like, ‘of course you dumb American.’ Instead, Eiji froze like a deer in headlights. 

“I mean you’re here.” The ending felt forced, a sort of half fake laugh an undertone making no real noise. 

“You said it ‘worked’ earlier. Did you-” 

Ash had only asked the idea - conceptualizing something made to explain the unexplainable defeated to purpose to him - of a higher power for something twice in his life. Both times were about Eiji. Every story of spiritual awakenings Ash had heard came from self-explanation or ground shattering events. Something about Eiji made Ash commit to the idea of something grander than arrays of carbon. Religious ideas of an afterlife were filled with promises of reunions. 

Did Eiji do this to see him again?

“Eiji, I-”

Eiji didn’t even look shocked when Ash had walked through the door. He fucking expected it. His smile wasn’t because he learned the truth. Eiji was happy he was dead. 

How much of that spanned from Ash? He made the only person in the universe he truly cared about willing to leave it early and alone just for the possibility of a reunion. His legs shook under him, and he crumpled to his knees. His waist hit the metal pole that was a bedframe. Eiji looked panicked. Ash had been willing to die for Eiji at any moment- the same was true until today. They mirrored each other in dangerous ways. 

Ash grabbed Eiji’s hand. It was so cold. Not like ice. Ice had a level of substance to it. His skin was dry like styrofoam- knuckles dusted with white. He brought it to the inside of his wrist. Ash could feel his heartbeat in every tensed muscle and watched the look of realization dawn on Eiji. 

Ash was practically shoved away. Even that motion felt drained. He curled in on himself in the hospital bed. “No, no. You’re dead Ash.” Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. One of his IVs was ripped out and a drop of blood appeared at the surface. 

Ash felt paralyzed. If this is what Yut-Lungs victims felt like, then the man was more of a monster than Ash had thought. He felt encased by something he could practically touch. Salvation was so close. Eiji was a foot away from him, but his bloodshot veins only made it harder to breathe. 

Ash had noticed the shadow of the nurse disappear awhile ago. Her footsteps were heavy but far apart - wherever she went she did so in a hurry. Soon more stretched darkness appeared under the door. 

“You guys can come in.” It was his last option. Eiji never really listened to him anyways. Besides Ash was too powerless to help him, he always was. On cue, the door slid open, and Max, Jessica, and Ibe stood like statues. But instead of the illusion of flowing fabric, whatever restoration happened sharpened every curve. 

“Ei-chan. I'm so glad you're okay!” Ibe exclaimed. He didn’t walk forward. It was a single motion before he was at Eiji’s side. Ibe reached out and Eiji flinched more. Eiji’s hand quivered against its spot on his arm. His voice was raspy as he breathed out, “Don’t. Please.” It wasn’t soft. Maybe it was just the silence in the room. Nobody knew how to act. The nurse's murmurs in the corridor were the only thing Ash could hear- and even that was overpowered by Eiji’s breaths. If tears were supposed to keep the eyes wet enough to perform their functions then why the hell did it feel like Eiji’s stare was the fucking sun. Something clattered out in the hallway and Ash knew was happening. 

Eiji had been so good at comforting people. Any time Ash’s brain made the apartment curtains look like spilling blood, Ash would rest his head in Eiji’s lap and Eiji would tell stories he heard until Ash snapped back. His silence wasn’t a lack of sound, it was a choice of solitude. As Eiji’s eyes darted around to something none of them could see, Ash wished he could do something, but Eiji’s eyes rolled back in his head before he could. The now-empty needle in the nurse Ash had met earlier might have been a saving grace. She gave a sympathetic look down at Ash, while the other two spoke to Ibe who translated to Max. Ash couldn’t hear him. He didn’t care. He wanted to grab Eiji from the hospital bed and be an anchor for him, but he couldn’t do that. He made everything worse. Max must have been calling for him. Even if he chose to ignore every noise in that hospital ‘Aslan,’ always showed an image of Griffin and Eiji smiling in his mind. He passed the delivery truck and kept running. If he went fast enough maybe he could go back in time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> was this pretty much just last chapter but with Ash's POV? yes
> 
> i promise Eiji will get much more attention, i just needed to set up a little bit more about ash's feelings before we move on. 
> 
> if yall have anything you want to see in this please let me know, i have some ideas but I'm happy to include more


	8. Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's a little ~shorter~ (i'm so funny) than the last chapters, I felt way too emotionally drained after writing the dialogue for this- so have fun reading eiji's slight breakdown
> 
> the same triggers apply for this chapter as for the rest
> 
> your comments mean the world to me, so thank you everyone who has read this story
> 
> i just wanted to mention i have no idea in how hospitals are supposed to work, so if this universe canonically has a mind-controlling drug, it can have extra mediocre hospitals

The moments of consciousness between sleep and total observance was a safe place. Eiji could feel the rhythmic pulses that followed his breathing from a plethora of dreams, and yet still feel every fiber of anything around him. Only in these moments could hospital gowns feel like silk. 

He remembered what had happened. He wasn’t dead. And while a part of him still held onto the hope that this elaborate situation was just the last rush of chemicals before his heart fully stopped, the other part felt a warmth so different from anything else. Death was so often described as cold, unforgiving. Skeletons synchronized with chattering teeth, and goosebumps on blue-tinted skin when in reality it was the people shadowed by death, every soul arm, and arm with a concept personified in countless ways, that were the true warmth. 

Eiji didn’t know when the moon became a symbol of death. Even if the moonlight beamed down in rays of isolation to the casual observer, it was nowhere close to death. Death was the cloud of particles in space. Always there, never quite defined. The more they are provoked. Poked and prodded at. That’s where the warmth comes from. The constant explosions of a burning sun. 

Maybe it was just old memories at awe-struck gazes at star charts, maybe it was that everything Ash said sounded like the sun's warmth, but Eiji wished not for the first time that gravity could disappear. He said he couldn’t fly. His ankle wasn’t the reason anymore. The tendons were perfectly healed. The only reason Eiji couldn’t fly is that it was one step closer to space. If he made it up there enough times he might never come down.

He didn’t want to wake up. This purgatory he could rest in provided thoughts not thought in words, but the pressing weight of images. His eyes pressed shut could never recreate the images he could during the day. The lack of details was a childhood innocence that wouldn’t be lost in every change of the seasons. 

Dawn was his safe haven. His moments of clarity. His chance to fly without consequence. Or maybe it was just Ash. Aslan. The untainted light was created by death but fueled by passion. 

Antidepressants did wonders for poetic prose. 

“Ei-chan, can you hear me?” 

Eiji used to love Japanese. The way it slipped off the tongue and enveloped every syllable like flower petals. Now the language just means goodbye. 

His head felt like cotton, but he still opened his eyes to see Ibe sitting in a chair next to him. Max was asleep by the door, and Jessica chatted with someone softly on the phone. “I can,” he muttered back. 

“I’m glad you're okay Ei-chan.” 

Eiji remembered reading somewhere that saying someone's name made whatever sentiment that much stronger and comforting. Whoever wrote that lied. Ibe said it like he forced himself to remember the nickname. Whatever connotation of childish language was replaced by forced happiness. 

“You’re saying it weird.”

“What?” Ibe’s face dropped and his smile vanished. Eiji didn’t know if he thought it was better. 

“Where’s Ash?” he asked. The disappointment painted in Ibe’s face was the only indicator that the question was asked too soon. 

Ibe sighed. “I don’t know, he ran off.” He waves his hand toward the door. Eiji’s eyes glanced over to it. Max was awake now. The jacket that had been acting as his blanket folded neatly in his lap. The way he leaned forward could only be completed by a notepad and recorder in hand. 

“And instead you sat with the unconscious person?” Eiji asked half-heartedly. His neck popped as he stared up at the ceiling again.

“I needed to make sure you were okay.”

‘I’m fine’ lingered on his tongue. That dismissal wouldn’t do much good now. He took a breath in. He realized how empty his stomach was. But he couldn’t imagine eating. “I’ve dealt with not being okay for this long,” he answered, shrugging slightly unconsciously. “I can spare your time while I’m drugged.”

Ibe gripped the armrests of his chair. The veins exposed on his hands looked like spider webs. Eiji mused Ash on how hands weren’t just for harm and suffering. Eiji was starting to doubt that. 

“Don’t say that,” Ibe breathed out. Whatever line the shadows under his eyes made was a line of anger Ibe walked. “Don’t say it like that…”

“Like what Ibe-san?” Eiji’s big secret was out. The only person he wanted to talk to ran away. He was tired of being ‘nice.’ Kindness only counted if you had something to lose. 

“Like we let  _ this _ ,” Ibe gestured to the room, “happen. I didn’t know. You avoided me. You don’t get to guilt trip me for this.” His eyes locked with Eiji’s. As much as Eiji wished he could stare back the images of golden statues- knives- jade earrings- so much rope- they all came back. Tears were such a strange response to pain, but at least they were proof that Eiji wasn’t a statue. 

“I wasn’t. I- I can’t talk about this right now.” He buried his head back in arms. The air felt suffocating. As he dried swallowed, the ‘ring’ of tension propped up his throat. 

Suddenly a hand grabbed his arm. He looked up to see Ibe only the softness that always seemed to nest in his eyes was replaced by rage. Eiji hated the way his fingers could easily wrap around his wrist. “Are you just going to wait another two years before you try to drown yourself again?” He wondered if the nurses could hear Ibe. Or did they not care. 

“It was my choice,” he said. His mind was too concentrated by the red marks still imprinted on his wrist. Ibe had let his hand go with a sigh and then a defeated slump back into his chair. 

“And what,” Ibe asked. Asking wasn’t even the right word. He spat it out like dog barks in alleyways. “You're going to stand by it? Do you have any idea how much this hurt us?” Max and Jessica only stared at the ground. “I was powerless and all I could do was wait and hope you were okay. You almost weren’t.”

“You don’t get to say that!” The words ripped out of Eiji’s throat. He mumbled it again before curling back in on himself. The hospital gown no longer felt like silk. 

“Say  _ what _ Eiji?” Ibe stood up. His coat laid folded on top of the chair. Forgotten. “You were better than this.”

“Ibe,” Max mediated standing between the hospital bed and Eiji. “It might be time to give it a rest.”

“Don’t you get it? I’ve never been better than this. That’s the point. I’ve looked at funerals in the newspaper and wished I could take their place for years. You were the one who told me to chase my ambitions. And yet the second time I try and fix it so you aren’t inconvenienced the best you can say is to be better?”

People always say that the words were off their chest. They only amplified for Eiji. He couldn’t tell if it was just his mind, or if the spot where the bullet sat was what was throbbing. Jessica held her hand in front of her mouth. The wedding ring sat in mockery. Everyone could keep a connection with another person, while Eiji lived in a long-since broken camera lens. 

“Second?” Eiji couldn’t tell who said it. Maybe it was all three. 

As much as he wanted someone desperately to just  _ hear him _ he couldn’t handle the way they stared at him. Max told him that he had to watch Ash’s fake autopsy. Eiji couldn’t tell if he was the one behind the glass or under the knife. 

“Just get out.” His voice sounded desolate in his head. Whatever inclinations of his voice had once been there, whatever playful syllables everyone was so accustomed too, whatever he had was gone. ‘It must be the drugs kicking in,’ he thought. 

“Eiji…”

“I said to get out.” He reached over and pressed the nurses' call button. “I- don’t want you to see me like this.”

Ibe grabbed his coat, the slight crinkle was the only thing Eiji could hear. Jessica stood tightly intertwined with Max. His arm rested protectively over her shoulder. They looked… afraid. 

“Eiji this isn’t you,” Ibe declared before opening the door. It closed with a quiet click. 

“You never knew me then,” Eiji whispered to himself. 

  * \- 



Ash stared in horror at the screen of his phone. 

Blanca had taught him to never leave anywhere without a promise that eyes were stationed at his disposal. The hospital was small enough that he could get access to the security feed in the alleyway Ash found himself in. One always went back to their roots. 

He never knew Eiji could act like that. What the hell happened in those two years?

Ash’s personal change wasn’t measured by much. The only things that felt substantial and worth noting was a kill count, the number of his own guys going down, and the number of people who were ready to kill him. His personality was gained through whatever facade he put on to those around him. Or maybe that was actually just him. Ash didn’t know which one painted him in a darker light.

The halo that seemed to always surround Eiji was gone. Eiji was like him. Only Ash was gone the whole time. His mind listed off reasons to blame himself, things he should have done, but he didn’t listen to them. Making whatever had happened to Eiji about himself felt worse than the actual mistakes. 

Eiji said his soul was always with Ash. 

How much did he manage to lose in himself from that one letter?

Eiji thought the last he’d seen of Ash was in a hospital corridor. Ash was the reason Eiji ended up there both times, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let him stay. 

They promised forever, and forever could never be kept alive with IV’s. 


	9. Conviction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash and Eiji talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no trigger warnings for this other than two very emotional boi's
> 
> Hope you all enjoy! :)

Eiji shouldn’t have been surprised when he eventually saw Ash sneak into his room at some uninhabitable time in the morning. He knew there was a clock somewhere on the walls, but the longer he stared at it, the louder the ticking became. Eiji was awake, even if the moon was completely overhead. He couldn’t stop thinking of what he said to Ibe. All of it had been true but denial was a lifeline that many didn’t have the luxury to call. 

The door slipped open, and Ash stepped completely in after a few seconds too long glancing back in forth in the hallway. He didn’t turn on the lights. From the way he glanced at the camera’s placement he didn’t want to be seen. Eiji thought he heard some of the nurses talk about what happened. An American boy running off after sneaking in, especially after his guest had to be drugged was the most exciting thing that happened in these walls. 

Eiji could hear everything here. Two women were in the room next to him. One must have been the patient, but he’d never seen the other leave. They would listen to movies so softly that their own impromptu dialogue felt real. The person on the other side of the wall with the clock tapped intricate rhythms. They could have been a drummer. 

Ash rocked back in forth on his heels. Even in the darkness, Eiji could tell he was debating staying. 

“You can sit down you dumb American,” he called out still not moving. His legs were stiff and his position right now was the only one where he wasn’t bothered by them. 

“You’re awake,” Ash stated, though it sounded more like a question. He went to grab a chair from the corner, but Eiji glared at him, rolling over to the side farthest from Ash, and patting the empty spot. Eiji was too tired to contemplate if fearing the way Ibe looked at him sitting there, or he just missing Ash being near him was the driving factor. Ash moved his hand away from the chair and slid into the bed careful to avoid any IVs. The bed was too small for one person, but with two Eiji could feel Ash’s breaths. The various machines overhead were the only reputable light source. It was a shame they were all red, they made every highlight look like smeared blood. Ash’s gentle smile was enough to wipe that imagery from his head. 

“You’re sure I’m not just dreaming this?” Eiji questioned. 

Ash always got deadly cold and concise when he was lying. He spoke with such confidence that most people wouldn’t dare question it. His face was filled with white lies until he shook his head laughing softly in the same dreamy tone Eiji had asked. 

“You’re not.”

Eiji nodded and nestled his head against the pillow. It was uncomfortable and barely there but the small movement was enough to remind whatever nerves could feel it that he was in fact there. 

“Ash?” he called out after a few minutes of silence. Eiji would be lying if he didn’t relish the feeling of having Ash alone. Ash had spent the entire time in America trying to escape people who wanted him- dead or alive. But Ash chose to come here. Those thoughts didn’t make the underlying question disappear. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you were alive?”

Whatever spell the early hours had cast on the two of them was broken. Ash sat up and Eiji did the same. It took a few seconds of awkward positioning, but they ended up facing each other on opposite sides of the bed. Eiji fiddled with the sheets underneath him. His legs screamed in protest at the way they were folded in front of him. Ash glanced off somewhere. He always did that before revealing some sort of secret. Like he had to retrieve it from some void that only a set number of seconds glancing at a wall could open. 

“I didn’t want you to get hurt,” he finally said. He said it with so much conviction that was almost impossible to interpret as anything other than fact. 

“I’ve told you multiple times that I didn’t care about being safe,” Eiji responded. He wanted to add that Ash had told himself to stay. He was glad he was stuck in this hospital. Being in his apartment would make him long for the moments where they could just exist.

“I never thought you’d do this.” Ash looked around again. Eiji subconsciously slid the blanket over the top of his IV. 

Eiji swallowed. The feeling of locking eyes with Ash felt foreign. It wasn’t that he was scared- he could never be scared of Ash, it was that Eiji never wanted to associate with the people who only viewed him as a wild beast. A hunt sought out for pleasure. Even though all those people had met their end. Even though Eiji had wished (a part of him still did) for the same fate. 

Ash destroyed anyone who looked at him that way. 

Eiji wondered if he had the same stare when he looked in the mirror.

“You’ve done worse to yourself,” Eiji said simply. 

“This isn’t about me.” Ash’s head flicked to the side. As much as he tried to disguise it as checking the door, Eiji knew he was trying to avoid this conversation. Ash acted in actions alone. 

“Isn’t it though?” Ash looked back at him. His posture was tighter and straighter than before. That always happened when he was uncomfortable. Eiji’s back strained with the unnatural curve. Opposites really do attract. 

“There’s no one left to hunt you down,” Eiji added. “You know that don’t you?” 

Eiji lifted up his hand, holding up one finger. “Blanca is back somewhere in the Carribean, there are no existing records of him.”

He added a second finger.

“Yut Lung is checked by countless leaders, and any one who forced him to do what he did is dead. Golzine.”  _ Three _ . “His brothers.”  _ Four _ . “Arthur too.”  _ Five _ . “Foxx.” He grabbed the blanket beneath his hand- the crumpled up fabric was a good enough outlet. “There’s no one left, and you know that.”

“They don’t mean  _ shit _ if someone new pops up.” Ash slung his legs over the side of the bed. The tips of his shoes dragged on the ground. One hand rested on the edge, tensed and ready for the command to leave. 

Eiji stood up, he felt the pull of the IV but ripped it out before Ash could see. If he did he didn’t comment on it. He walked in front of Ash, kneeling so they were more or less at eye level.

“The world still thinks you're dead, you released information that shook the entire government.” Eiji paused for a moment. “What are you afraid of Ash?”

“I don’t want to lose you.” His answer was so fast that Eiji just stared blankly at him for a second. Whatever absence of emotions that had been there was replaced by resentment.

“You’re willing to die yourself for  _ that _ ? Is that the logic you're gonna use?”

Ash’s hands gripped tighter on the sheets. “I came back for one day and you had to be fucking drugged. What am I supposed to get from that?” His eyes were glossy as he lifted his head. “You left New York with a goddamn bullet wound.” The air seemed to shake as Ash realized he yelled the last sentence. He slid his palm across his eyes and looked back down at the ground. 

“You told Ibe,” Ash continued softer, “that you envied dead people. You got a bullet wound because of me. You were kidnapped. How am I supposed to draw anything from that other than you seeing me as your passive way to death?”

“What the hell am I supposed to get from you letting me think you were dead for two years? I didn’t care if I took a bullet because I thought you would be okay after. What am I supposed to think when you went on a fucking suicide mission? What am I supposed to think when you never said goodbye? What am I supposed to think when I found out that you died?”

Eiji’s voice cracked, and tears coated his cheeks, but he didn’t care. He knew he would always pale in comparison to the strength of those around him.

“I did what I had to do.” Eiji sunk at Ash’s words. He didn’t know when he stood up, but he was by the door. He could leave if he wanted. Ash had done the same. It would be fair in the realm of retribution. 

“You despise your mother for leaving,” Eiji stated. It felt shallow to bring it up, but the time Ash had spoken about his mother was when he looked more understanding of the world. “It was me who comforted you when you thought she disappeared because of you.” Ash remained concerningly quiet. “You hated the fact that you never heard from her. And you would still claim to be the good guy for not telling me anything.”

“I never claimed to be the good guy,” Ash snapped back. Eiji could feel his eyes at where the bullet wound still left a scar. “That’s the point.” Ash brought his right leg up and hugged it to his chest. “I don’t deserve you. All I fucking do is cause you harm.” His voice was almost so quiet that Eiji thought he made it up in his head. 

“Hate the sin, love the sinner,” Eiji mused back. 

He found himself captivated by the pervasive influences in American rhetoric. He hoped that if he learned it all that maybe a hidden meaning to Ash’s words would appear. His language was based so strongly in nature that he feared he could never speak in a country ruled by people in power and towering buildings.

“What?” 

“Envy,” Eiji confirmed. “Hate the sin, love the sinner. You don’t understand.” Ash lifted his head. “You deserve me because..” Eiji paused. “I need you with me. Swallow your fucking pride. I  _ need _ you. I thought you were gone for two years and I couldn’t handle it. I was- and still am willing to do anything for you. I don’t care if you won’t reciprocate it, I just need you here. Even if it’s just for now.”

“Eiji…” Ash whispered. He looked as defenseless as when he muttered those same words more than two years ago. Eiji praised the darkness. Everything in the room was so reflective. If he saw his reflection looking back with the same pain he’d seen in Ash...

“Just don’t say anything.” Eiji dropped his hands. He sat down on the bed facing the door. Ash’s hands still remained tense next to his. “I’ve done so much thinking, I just want to exist with you.”

Ash looked over at him, slowly lowering his leg so it laid flat against the ground. His hand relaxed and he hesitated before laying it on top of Eiji’s. Eiji turned his over, surprise written clearly on his face. Their fingers locked, and Eiji smiled at the gesture. “Okay,” Ash said, resting his head on Eiji’s shoulder. “Let’s just exist for once.”

  
  



	10. Sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kumi comes to the hospital

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An extra-long chapter for you all. i mean by writing standards it's actually not that long, but let me have this literature gods. Thank you all again for reading, and hope you enjoy :")

Eiji had fallen asleep a few minutes after their conversation. It wasn’t surprising, whatever concoction of medicine he had gotten was fairly strong. Ash reinserted his IV while his soft snores filled the room. If nothing else Goldzine was persistent. The medical training he had received was the one thing he was grateful for. He knew the effects of most common poisons, how to perform an impromptu surgery if the situation called for it, every weak point at the body- but even with the same level of knowledge as most EMT’s, he was most grateful that Eiji would be fine. He knew Eiji would be fine without the IV as well, but it was the one thing he could control at the moment.

Ash had been careful to lay Eiji back in the hospital bed after he slumped completely on Ash’s shoulder. He turned to leave for the night- he was lucky no hospital staff had come in so far, and didn’t want to ruin the chance to see Eiji with one visit- but Eiji groaned in his sleep and latched onto his arm. The display would make Ash flighty if it was anyone else, but he simply smiled and laid down in the bed. The book Jessica had given him was placed on the nightstand. Warmth filled his chest as he realized Max left it for him. 

_ ‘Am I that obvious?’ _

Ash grabbed it and held it with his one free hand, letting the gentle light of the heart monitor flow across the page. It was a horrendous book, Jessica herself even admitting to it being a re-gift. Still, the thought of Jessica scrambling around the house and grabbing the first novel she saw was kind. After four chapters Ash gave up and put it back on the nightstand. He held his breath at the slight movement, but Eiji remained fast asleep next to him. It’s funny how often it just happened. Eiji used to stay up late until he got back to the apartment, and after they talked for a while he would just fall over. Ash had never seen Eiji drunk before, but if he ever did drink he would be like he was when he was about to fall asleep. He used more Japanese, said things under his breath and laughed about it quietly, and would try to stay awake by kicking his foot out and moving it up and down. Everything he did was subtle like he was scared to take up too much space. As unsafe as Ash’s mind told him the hospital was, it had been more than a day since he slept. Eiji begged him to just exist. Part of that includes not standing guard 24-7. 

Ash allowed himself one last look at Eiji, before closing his eyes and letting himself drift off. 

He woke up to the door opening. In an instant, he was back to his old habits. His hand instinctively hovered over his waistband even if his gun had been left behind. His other arm was still bent at an odd angle, and he didn’t bother moving it as Max meandered into the room. Jessica was close behind him, and at one look at him, she gave an excited smile. 

“I’m shocked security didn’t kick you out,” Max exclaimed before flopping on the armchair.

“Not everyone is as loud as you,” Ash replied. He went to lift Eiji’s arm off of him but Max stopped him.

“I’m assuming you got here in the middle of the night?”

Ash gave a stiff nod. Sunlight was seeping in through the window. He must have slept for at least a few hours. 

“You're allowed to relax for once,” Max noted. A trace of sympathy left on the edge of his tongue. “Let your dad protect you.” 

Ash glared at him, but in the end, resigned and rested easily against the headrest. It wasn’t as comfortable as laying down but it didn’t feel the same with Max hovering awkwardly in the room. 

“How about I get us all some breakfast,” Jessica exclaimed. Her arm pushed her purse back and a single foot was pointed towards the door. 

“The hospital doesn’t allow outside food,” Ash deadpanned.

“They also don’t allow trespassers,” Max retorted. He turned to Jessica and smiled. “Pancakes would be great.” Jessica nodded and looked at him again.

Ash shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“What would Eiji want?” Jessica glanced between Max and Eiji. “No one deserves to eat hospital food.”

“Natto,” Ash answered routinely. They were in Japan, maybe the vendors wouldn’t vomit at the smell. “Don’t get it for yourself, you’ll tastebuds will thank you.”

Max crossed his arms and leaned forward in his chair. “That was a pretty fast answer Ash.”

“It’s almost like I know him.” The overexaggerated cheeriness dispelled at the same time Jessica closed the door behind her. 

Max hummed under his breath but held up a finger contemplatively. “I’ve known you for longer by now and I have no idea what you like,” he paused in a way that made it seem like he was waiting for a lightbulb to appear over his head. “Other than being an asshole of course.”

“Guess we have similar interests then,” Ash added with a smile. The room felt strangely empty with only Max. “Is Ibe okay?” Ash asked. The older Japanese man was far too protective of Eiji. Even if he got his feelings hurt, he would never just leave.

“He needs time to compose himself-” By the lines of disapproval on his face, Ash guessed he had tried to talk to Ibe. “Wait, why do you ask?” 

“One- he’s not with you,” Max nodded. “Two- this hospital's security system is shit and easy to hack.” 

Max leaned back in his chair. Any expression of surprise he would have had was wiped out several illegal actions ago. He ran his fingers through his hair, and bent down to grab something out of the tiny souvenir bag he brought with him- he must have bought it yesterday. He stopped midway and looked back at Ash.

“What did you and Eiji talk about?” Eiji turned slightly next to him. He always woke up with the sun- Ash didn’t understand how he could function that early. Ash waited for a second but turned back to Max as Eiji relaxed again.

“Why does it interest you so much?”

“Can’t I just like that you’re happy?” Ash glowered at him. Concern only meant leverage and wasted thoughts. At least empathy incited the chance for action. “I’ll take that as a no then,” Max continued. He had the habit of changing his expressions of a whim. Max had no fluidity, it was an on and off switch, Ash guessed he was the same. “Ash before you were ready to pull a gun on me,” Max teased again, before switching to sentimental. “You just lying there with him was the first time I’ve seen you happy in two years. Shame on me.” 

Ash sat in silence. Whatever conclusions Max had made weren’t going to be swayed. Eiji needed to sleep, and one person’s defenses weren't worth the risk of waking him up. Max gasped after a few moments elapsed. 

“Wait, no ‘I’m a danger to him.’ Honestly I’m shocked.” His impression of Ash was more childish than anything else. 

“He can be surprisingly persuasive. You could learn a thing or two from him.”

Max huffed under his breath. “I’m plenty persuasive. I  _ actually _ pulled a few favors and got the hospital to release Eiji early. He can go home today, someone just has to be with him.”

Ash tapped his fingers against the rail of the bed. “Are you waiting for me to volunteer?”

“Yes idiot.” Max dragged his hands down his face. Max had told them on their way to Los Angeles that he knew a little sign language. He said a guy on his squad had hearing damage from an incident, and they would practice together. Ash wondered how many of his overexaggerated gestures were captions to what he was saying. 

“He can decide,” Ash stated. The nurse he had talked to earlier stood outside the door with new bags of saline, “if he even wants to leave the hospital,” he added as she stepped in. She made quick work of replacing the old one and gave dirty, yet sympathetic glances to Ash. Like a peace offering stained with blood. 

She walked out and closed the door gently. After both of them were sure she was out of earshot, Max continued. “You spent so long trying to protect him. Why stop now?”

“For a man who spent a long time in a jail cell you still don’t get the urge for freedom. Being told to stay in one place doesn’t do wonders for the soul.”

Max looked ready to apologize. While he had done the best he could, his and Jessica’s home was the main reason Ash stayed in the small room alone. He could have left if he wanted to, but the only place he wanted to go was the back alleys in the city. Even then it didn’t feel like security. Walking past the walls of graffiti was like people who owned a map of their hometown, the control you could feel over a piece of land was more easily recognizable than anything else. 

Max didn’t get a chance to say anything as Eiji groaned and sat up, one hand blocking his eyes from the sun. Eiji looked over at Ash and gave a half-smile. Max waved from his chair. 

“I woke up before you onii-chan,” Ash noted, pointing at the clock. “You’re getting sloppy.”

“You’re used to a completely different time zone,” Eiji pouted back. “It isn’t fair.” He tilted his neck to the side and Ash could hear the three distinct cracks it made. Eiji looked back around the room. “Where’s Jessica and Ibe?”

“Jessica went to get breakfast for us, she said she’ll be back in a few minutes. We haven’t heard anything from Ibe though.” 

Eiji’s head dropped, and he fiddled with his fingers. “Oh…”

“But good news!” Max said, clapping his hands in front of him. “You can be discharged today.”

“That seems really early,” Eiji noted, but he smiled at the end. It might have been better for both of them to not know exactly what favors were pulled. 

“Someones gonna have to stay with you though.” Ash tried to ignore the way Eiji immediately looked at him.

“It’s up to you,” Ash replied simply. Warmth bubbled in his stomach as Eiji’s face lit up. It still wasn’t as bright as it had been in America. It was like he was observing his reactions through panes of glass. It was the same way he looked when he talked about pole-vaulting.

“If you don’t mind. I-”

Ash cut him off. He shifted again on the bed, shaking his arm slightly - it had fallen asleep hours ago. “It’s okay, we’re existing right?”

Eiji nodded, pulling himself up and rubbing his eyes. A few minutes passed as Eiji slowly sipped on a cup of water left next to him, Ash leaned back and tried to focus on his breathing. The hole in his stomach permanently placed there by anxiety only seemed to be noticeable in the quiet moments. Max beamed as Jessica walked in, plastic bags in hands. Max went to hug her, but she swatted him off as she laid the different containers down. She avoided eye contact with everyone. Ash understood why as Ibe walked in with a young girl.

“Kumi?” Eiji whispered next to him.

  * -



No matter how long Eiji had spent planning, Kumi was always the one factor that he couldn’t plan around. He had written in so many of his letters that they all knew what happened- but Kumi didn’t. Her letter sat unwritten until minutes before he closed the apartment behind him. All it said was:

‘Be brave. Live. I’m sorry I couldn’t do the same.’

Eiji’s heart plummeted when she walked into the room. She wore her yellow coat, and with chipped nails, she stood by his bed. Ash looked nervously between the two siblings. Ibe still avoided eye contact and hovered in the doorway. 

“What the hell were you thinking?” She bellowed in Japanese. “Were you even thinking?” No preambles. She never tested the water, in fact, she was the water. Whatever situation presented she became the controlling factor. Docile on its own, but cold provoked. 

Eiji’s head already pounded. “Kumi, I’m sorry..” He’d said the same words over and over again to anyone who greeted him. The syllables felt foreign on his lips. The room got colder. He didn’t know if he could ever explain it to her. He held her when she was a child and a part of that naive face always followed her. 

“I don’t want your damn apologizes.” She flung her arm to the side. “You don’t get to try and off yourself, and then just get away with ‘sorry.’”

Everyone tipped toed around it. They found different ways to say the same thing. Eiji couldn’t understand it. Everyone’s fear of death, like saying the word would somehow invite a psychopomp to their bedside.

Eiji was done with whatever emotional responses his brain forced at every conversation. The burn that was once in his eyes transferred to his side. Phantom pains were the modern age grim reapers. Scythes were modernized and dulled too. 

“I wasn’t trying to,” he said simply. If he imagined the air around him, felt every gust of wind, maybe the conversation would be swept up in it.

“Weren’t trying to what-,” Kumi inquired. She had the movements that could have been read as pompous if not for the way her voice cracked. “Kill yourself? It seems like you meant that.”

“I didn’t want to put you in this situation.” His stomach churned. Science would call it a gut reaction to stress, but Eiji knew. His organs were so desperate to go back to the water. ‘A brain that wanted to die, and a body that fought to live.’ He heard that so many times. It wasn’t true, his body longed for it. Each cell building a functioning world only to die, their code must have leaked out. 

“Did you seriously think I would prefer you being dead?” She sighed and dug her shoes into the floorboards. Eiji didn’t dare look at Ash. He learned to interpret his silence in one of two ways. Anger or remorse. Eiji could feel both. 

“I shouldn’t have found out you were sad after you were planning on dying,” Kumi murmured. The jacket was too large on her small frame. Normally she filled it out, challenging the sun with sweeping yellow sleeves. 

“It’s more than just being ‘sad’ Kumi.” Eiji had given up categorizing what he felt a long time ago. His taste of freedom was driven by unclear thoughts left in an arena. His taste of freedom was the salt left on his tongue when he woke up desperately turning on all the lights. 

“And how would I know, you wouldn’t talk to me!” Ibe stood silently listening in the corner. Of course, he was the only other one who could understand them. Eiji wondered if he brought Kumi to press the breaking point till the pieces turned to knives. 

“I didn’t want to hurt you..” Eiji couldn’t tell if he said it aloud or not. The response was a pre-recorded answer anyways. 

“It hurts a lot more to hear your brother is in the hospital and that they don’t know if he’ll make it.” Eiji could only remember two other times when Kumi had cried. The highlights they caused looked unreal. Whatever souls were made up of looked like the tears of the brave. “It took me two days to get back here, and I was so worried I would be too late.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Are you going to swim in self-loathing for the rest of your life Eiji?” If Kumi was not standing in front of the door, Eiji would have been sure that Max and Jessica would have left. He would have been grateful if they had. 

“You don’t understand Kumi.”

“You didn’t let me. You left for America and came back so different. I asked you what happened, and you never told me.”

Eiji chuckled under his breath. ‘You didn’t want to know about everytime a gun was held to my head.’

“It’s better for you to not know.”

“Stop it with the cryptid  _ bullshit _ . I’m not mad because of you hiding whatever danger you were in. I still would like to know, but most people don’t want to talk about their bullet wounds. I’m mad because you left us,” she flung her hands to point at Ibe, but that wasn’t who she was talking about. “And I understand you needed a break. But you went to America and that’s the last time I’ve seen you happy. And now whoever the hell that American boy is just magically comes back. You act closer to him than your own fucking family.” Ash and Kumi stared at each other. Ash always looked like he knew exactly what was going on. Even if the conversation was in another language, Ash didn’t back down from her glare and moved closer to Eiji. 

Eiji let his fingers brisk Ash’s before standing up. Even if he was taller, Kumi and Eiji would always be on equal ground. “You say family like it’s functioning. Dad died, mom can’t provide for us.” Kumi looked away, but Eiji placed his hands on her shoulders. He smiled. “Ash doesn’t expect anything from me. I’m sorry I’ve been a bad brother, I’m not going to deny that,” his smile faded, and he lowered his hands. “But you have no idea what I’ve been through Kumi. I can’t talk about this anymore,” he murmured angling himself away. 

“When are you going to talk about it Eiji? You have more photos of people I’ve never even heard of then me, of yourself. You can’t understand how helpless I feel knowing I was there while this happened and didn’t do anything.”

“You all say you feel guilty for not being there for me, and you’ve all fucking berrated me the moment I woke up! Do you not understand that I do it enough for myself?” Kumi’s eyes widened. “I just want it to stop,” Eiji pleaded. It wasn’t even at Kumi. He told Ash about the gods of Japan. He never felt a connection to them, but each vowel was a secret plea for release. “Why can everyone else leave and I’m stuck here?”

“You really want to die that badly?” Kumi asked. Her hair fell in front of her face like a theatre mask. Ash had his the same way when he wanted to look younger. It made his stomach sick to think that Kumi would ever have that appearance, even accidental. 

“No-,” he breathed out. “I don't know. I’m tired Kumi, living like this makes me so tired.”

“What can I do Eiji? I just want to help you.” Her hands gripped around his own in the way a swimmer hung onto a lifeboat. Eiji smiled and pulled her against his chest. She sunk in and gently placed her arms around his neck. They stayed like that for a few seconds, the question dismissed but not forgotten. 

“I can’t promise to tell you all of what happened in America,” he whispered down at her. “I’m sorry I pushed you away,” she nodded and sniffled muffled by his hospital gown, “but I’ll try to make it right, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered back. 


	11. Dragons Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Yut Lung is much harder than anyone else, but he might be my favorite so far, so enjoy a fun new POV. As the title suggests, the next chapter will be focused on Yut Lung (probably) and Sing. 
> 
> TW: Very vague talk of parents emotional abuse, I don't know how far I'll expand that in the future, so I'll keep y'all updated. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! When my motivation that last's for longer than 30 minutes comes back there will be a longer chapter.

“Why did you call me here Yut?” Sing asked, tossing aside the intricate curtain that lined the doorframe. His entrance was everything but graceful. The curtains fell behind him in a gentle clatter as he immediately collapsed into an armchair. 

Yut Lung turned in his chair. “Can’t I just enjoy the company of a good friend?” he beckoned with a flick of his hand. He moved the papers scattered on his desk into one pile. They were littered with Chinese characters, half of them with radicals were so based in nature that it’s almost like the rainforest where the paper was ripped from was speaking back in complicated brushstrokes. 

“No,” Sing scoffed. His foot bounced in the air. “You’ve never done it before.”

Yut Lung turned back, his computer screen had dimmed, and he dragged his finger over the touchpad. “I suppose you’re correct.” Sing hummed in overconfidence. That quality was the one thing Yut Lung despised about him. “I have a few questions for you,” he finally said. The documents on his screen were starting to bore him.

“Shoot,” Sing replied from his seat. As much as he’d matured, he still had the same child-like wonder looking around the room. The countless tapestries would do that to a person. It wasn’t the culmination that captivated Yut Lung, rather the dedication to each stitch. He couldn’t imagine himself committed to anything like that. 

“How is Eiji doing?” Another email written in a thinly veiled code, he deleted it after seeing its sender. The man was so obsessed with profits. Even the dignity that came with funds once only thought of with piles of jewels didn’t give a hint of grace to the man. Instead, he lumbered around like a child with daddy’s credit card. 

Sing stood up and watched over Yut Lung’s shoulder, his hands gripping tight at the red fabric of the chair. “Why the hell do you ask about him?” His panicked demeanor turned suspicious. “I thought you hated him,” he added with crossed arms. 

Yut Lung pulled up a scanned document. He’d gotten one of his subordinates to retrieve the file that morning. Okumura Eiji was printed at the top. The rest was filled with the scribbles of an underpaid nurse. “He’s in the hospital. I thought you knew.” He flicked his eyes back up at Sing who looked too startled. If it had been anyone else the reaction would never have been elicited. The Japanese boy had too much influence on Sing- Sing himself should have been rushed to a hospital countless times, and yet it still created such clear panic in him. A shame. 

“What the hell happened?”

Yut Lung grabbed a single golden key taped to the back of a picture frame. The picture of course was a shot of an arrangement of flowers. It looked serene to any normal person, but if someone were out to assassinate him in his home they would get the message. “The files say attempted suicide. Drowning. Not a particularly fun way to go.”

_ Aconite- hatred. _

It was ironic to see Eiji almost go out like that. Had he not desperately made his escape back in America he would have had a plethora of far more effort options. All without the hassle of waiting for the tides. 

“That’s a low lie even for you,” Sing hissed, grabbing his phone from his back pocket. The black case was covered in scratches. 

“See for yourself,” Yut Lung shrugged. He stepped and circled the chair allowing Sing to take his place. He strode to a small shelf, while Sing stared intently at the document. A small ornate watering-can sat on the top shelf. He grabbed it and let it drop uncontrolled on the small collection of plants laid daintily across the ground. The petals still remained bent after the onslaught of water. 

Countless people warned him of the dangers of having the most highly toxic plants littered around. Something about the bright, vibrant colors, a beckoning of death, felt natural to be around. It would take very little effort and no supplies for someone to come in and kill him, and yet he still woke up every morning greeted by evergrowing harbingers of death. 

“Shit,” Sing spat as his eyes finally settled at the bottom of the screen. He pushed himself out of the chair and clenched his fist uncertainty in the air. “I need to go there.”

_ Asphodel- death. _

Sing was halfway to the curtains, the fabric already draped across his fingers, when Yut Lung called.“There’s something else that might interest you.”

“And that is?” Sing sneered back.

“Ash Lynx is alive,” Yut Lung stated cooly, playing with the ends of his hair. It had grown too long, but even if it had been years since he bothered to care for it, it still remained orderly. “Currently in Japan in fact.” He willed for something untamed. 

The way the boy’s eyes lit up even at the mention of Ash was perplexing. Yut Lung could practically see the train of thought that pushed that hope down. “He died two years ago,” Sing sighed. His ankle was crossed slightly behind his left leg. As much as he swore hatred to his brother, Yut Lung had seen the characters of his name etched into the skin there. 

“Believe me or don’t, I can’t control that,” Yut Lung acknowledges. “Just thought I’d let you know,” he paused and zeroed in on Sing. “For Lao’s sake.” 

It came as a surprise when Sing sought consolation after finding his brother shot in the chest that night in him of all people. He didn’t speak except for a declaration of Lao’s death as he left the room. He just sat quietly in the corner. Yut Lung expected whatever teenage spunk hadn’t been wrung out of him to arise and challenge Ash. Instead, he stood neutral. 

“Are you planning on doing something?”

“I already have,” Yut Lung confirmed. “I got the hospital to release Eiji early, and with that Ash also leaves.” Sing pressed something frantically into his phone, most likely a plane ticket of some kind.

“Why bother?” he asked as he slid it back into his pocket. 

As much as Yut Lung despised Shorter Wong, he had to admit that the man was the only one capable of not trading sides in an instant. It led to his downfall in the end. Maybe that’s the key. Morality is a door to death, with constantly shrinking frames.

_ Rue- sorrow. _

“A hunt is no fun if the game’s already in a cage,” Yut Lung explained. He walked over to Sing. The younger was now at eye level to him. He slipped a plane ticket into his hand and smiled. The intention of sincerity isn’t worth contemplating if it wasn’t even considered by the beholder. 

“You can’t just let him go? Even after all this time. You got your revenge,” Sing stated pressing a finger into Yut Lung's chest. “You have the power you wanted.” The smile faded from Yut Lung’s mouth. Power was a pointless gambit. Even if the end objective of the moral gray lines he crossed daily eluded him, power was never one of them. 

“A hunt can mean many things,” he offered. Communication was used as an end all be all, but in reality, it was a blood sacrifice to a god where each myth discredited them further. If each element of humanity was pushed to whatever hell may be, one at a time, maybe whatever character flaws existing pre-written into their codes could be bred out. 

“At first I thought the secrecy was for whatever image you want,” Sing mused. His speaking was never as eloquent as those around him- the price paid for education cut several years short. Yet even without them, he glanced up with full confidence. “But now I think you have no idea what to feel.”

To think that Sing had once confided in him about a man who was already gone, and yet even when this occurrence still had a pulse couldn’t bother to stay in his company. 

“Go see your friend in the hospital,” he glared at Sing, hand resting on the handle to his bedroom. “I’m sure he’s loving the company.”

_ Amaranthus aka “Love lies bleeding,” - heartbreak. _

  * _-_



Dear Mom, 

The odds of you actually reading this letter are pretty slim. It would require you to pick up the phone when someone eventually calls. It would require you to put on the fake appearances you only had for guests as you opened the door. It would require your attention for a few moments, and enough sympathy to make it to the end without scoffing. It took me this long to finally accept that an empty chair would be left at my funeral with your name on it. The roses tossed on my grave would be untouched by you. I know you’ll view the coroners' report as a battle I lost, and a warning sign to every mind you can grasp. 

You forced me back here. And for some reason, I listened. I bet you knew other people were in the room because it was the same voice you answered the neighbors with. 

I wanted to believe that you missed me. And in a way you did. Kumi got accepted into a boarding school and left the house. Dad died. You missed someone there to control. I didn’t even live with you, and yet my presence in the same country was enough to satisfy that part of you. 

The odds of you reading this are pretty slim. I don’t know if I’ll even leave this with the others. The concept of these notes speaks to an apology and I’ve spent my entire life apologizing to you. It took me finding someone who would be willing to do anything to make sure I was okay to realize that you never cared enough. The pictures of us all from years ago were an idealization. 

I’d love to say you were trying your best, but at the end of the day, I need someone to blame. I’ve blamed myself for this long, and I realize I only got that from you. 

I truly hope that you get better. Find that ounce of happiness you think you can get from validation, because I know I’ll never be able to be that for you. At least I knew I had whatever love you couldn’t give me threefolds from a man thousands of miles away. You were competing with a deadman, and so you will lose with one too.

Goodbye Mom.

  * -



_ Unique Rose- Call me not beautiful  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Researching flowers meaning way too fun for me to be healthy. They have so many lists that like any message can be delivered through a flower. And you cannot change my mind that Yut Lung knows them all just to spite people. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and feel free to yell about this show with me in the comments <3


	12. Dragons Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey my lovely readers! Sorry this one took a little longer than usual, but it is my longest (I think) so far. I know 4,000 words isn't a lot but I know I personally can't read chapters much longer than that without zoning out a bit. 
> 
> Trigger warnings: mentions of bad habits with alcohol, probably going to delve more into it next chapter
> 
> I have no idea how long I'm going to keep doing this. Most likely the next few chapters will be a continuation of what happens in this one, and then some at the end of hopefulness and comfort, but I am very bad at sticking to plans so it could go on for much longer.

Yut Lung wouldn’t be surprised if Sing didn’t bother to use the tickets he gifted, but smiled to himself as he got the call that he had in fact boarded the private plane. The man on the other side of the phone spoke in a monotone that felt like it could be sliced with a knife and hung up with the rumble of another plane taking off. Yut Lung didn’t know why he kept the man around, it was just another paycheck sent off through illegal passages, but at least the updates were consistent. Hearing the phone ring occasionally was a pleasant break from the silence. 

He didn’t know what he wanted with Ash. He had a purpose when his goal was to bring him down, but when the ones who had given him the mission were dead what else was left? The rush of adrenaline was what he missed, even if he was complicit in the blurring motions that his life had been left in. It was no matter, something told him that the reunion in Japan would be enough to spark some drama. 

He wrapped his fingers back around the phone. Sing doted on him for using such an old fashioned machine. The rotary dial clicked with the satisfaction of a gun, but everything was inlaid with gold. It was strange. Everyone around him used those weapons like a second arm, but he had never shot one. As often as dragons were depicted with fire streaming between their jaws, a firearm was always out of reach. Aimed at his head, or at those around him. 

He held the receiver to his ear. The line was picked up a few seconds later.

“Pick me up, I have business in Japan,” he ordered. The man fumbled the answer in his mouth for a few moments. “Yes sir.”

Yut Lung cut off the line and slipped back down into his chair. 

  * \- 



The drive to the hotel Ash had rented was spent in silence. Max, Ibe, and Jessica insisted on tagging along. Kumi went back to school earlier that day. Eiji knew that his release from the hospital wasn’t normal. He hated to say it but part of him wished he wasn’t out. The normal treatment would keep visitors away, he’d be alone in a hospital room. As much baggage as he had in those rooms, anything was better than the sympathetic glances everyone threw at him. Ibe drove, and everyone ushered Eiji to the passenger seat. If he was a bomb in their eyes, waiting for the slightest touch to explode, they wore hazmat suits made of idle conversation. 

Max and Jessica spared glances at each other, and Ash stared at him through the mirror. Eiji avoided looking that direction. He longed to sleep through the ride, but his eyes burned with paranoia. He could feel the slight numbness of his foot as it continued to bounce under him. A few spare water bottles crinkled if he moved too fast, and Eiji winced at the slight cracking that sounded like thunderclaps in his head. 

Eiji had canceled his phone plan a week ago by now, but Ibe got it back and handed the small device back to him in the car. It was already on and the passcode that had once been there was now disabled. There were 30 unread texts from Ibe, several from Max, a call from Sing, and emails from his professors. He opened the emails and scrolled through their comments. Their sentences didn’t flow in his head, but a few words of praise made their way through the fog. One had even offered a photo exhibit that would premiere in two months. Handfuls of congratulations weighed more and more on him, and Eiji eventually powered the phone down and slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans. 

The tires reeled as they pulled into the run-down parking lot of the hotel. 

“It was the best I could get on short notice,” Ash explained, already pushing his door open. He stood awkwardly outside, attention divided between scanning the area and looking torn over Eiji’s door handle. Ibe turned off the ignition and hopped out of his side. Max and Jessica already managed to get a suitcase out of the car. 

“Come on Eiji,” Ibe beckoned. He looked up to see everyone looking at him. Their eyebrows were raised to a point where it was so forced that they looked drawn on. Eiji didn’t know what kept him in the car. He hated tight spaces for a while now. The weather was the odd sort of muggy where every inclosed space felt like a greenhouse. His hair was greasy, and the tired expressions on the whole party's face was a Vegas sign for attention. His response was apparently too slow as Ash pulled open the door, and held one hand out. Eiji took it with slightly shaking hands and pulled himself out. Ash smiled and placed himself at Eiji’s side, even if he downplayed the display of sympathy with hands tucked informally in his pockets. 

Max held open the door for Jessica, and the train of politeness passed until they all stood at the reception desk. Ibe talked in sharp Japanese and the lady at the counter handed over two keycards. Ibe pocketed one for himself and handed the other to Ash.

Max was already halfway in the elevator singing that song he always seemed to have under his breath, and Jessica pressed the 5th-floor button. 

Eiji stood at the doors. He never liked the lights of the elevators. The up and down arrows felt too much like dictators for whatever realm existing in these temporary homes. “I’m going to take the stairs,” he declared. 

Ibe shook his head and sighed. “Come on Eiji.” He waved his hand to the gap right in the center surrounded by all four of them. “It’ll be faster.” 

Eiji stammered staring at the shrinking spot. 

“It’s okay,” Ash said. He stepped out and waved a mock salute at Max. “I’ll go with him.”

Ibe pursed his lips but nodded and pressed the ‘close doors button’ on the elevator. Eiji knew they didn’t work. It was just another semblance of control. The people watching the camera’s probably laughed at each jab at it. The final ding rang out, and the pair of boys headed towards the stairwell. 

“I’m here for you Eiji,” Ash whispered somewhere near the third floor. The stairwell looked filthy. Dust settled in the crevices of each step, and a few of the lights overhead were broken.

“I know,” he replied. 

Jessica was the only one waiting for them on the fifth floor. “Max and Ibe went to go put things in the room,” she stated. “We bought some food for you two.”

“Thank you Jessica,” Ash answered. Saying it made Eiji feel worse about the fact that he needed to be cared for. They told him over and over that they would feel worse if he was on his own. People talked about sharing the love, but sharing the heaviness was the only thing that was actually contagious. 

The room was a suite. Two beds lay in the center, a microwave, and a mini-fridge were the only things that resembled a kitchen. A bathroom was opposite of a hall closet. There was only one sliding door, that they walked through to see a couch. A few blankets were already tossed over the top. Eiji’s computer sat on the coffee table. 

“It’s been a long day,” Ibe stated. “We'll leave you boys alone for the night.”

Ash went to see them off, while Eiji flicked open his computer. Max pulled Ash to the side by the door. 

Confidentiality was not his specialty. 

“Call us if anything happens.” Max only used that voice a few times. Like part of his army day’s rearing its head as a reminder that plan A could and would go wrong. 

“I’m not going to let it.” Ash was so self-assured, even if his voice was just above a whisper. 

Eiji wished he could feel the same way he did at the apartment in New York, but the moment Ash walked back through the sliding doors Eiji could feel whatever energy he had fallen away. He gave a weak wave as he walked to the bed closed to the window. The sun was at the odd angle between daylight and sunset that was the most vibrant muted color light refractions could be. Yet again Aslan was the first comparison that came to mind. 

Eiji hadn’t even taken off his shoes when he walked in. They felt clunky against each other on the bed, and they pulled the cheap blankets at odd angles. Eiji only sunk deeper into his arm. Another day gone, swept up with the rays of fading light. 

  * -



The end of his portfolio asked what message he was trying to portray. The entire project was twelve photos among dozens of other studies of wildlife, architecture, portraits- anything that could be captured in a camera lens was graded and broken down to whatever parts could be tallied. Eiji’s professors always said that critiques were the best way to grow as an artist, but to a certain level trying to explain something meant to be observed in quiet passing took away whatever magic was there. 

The other students in the class had long explanations of what each of their pieces was trying to convey. The effect of the blues added in editing, the mood created by a spot of saturation. Eiji didn’t care about the technicalities. The shutter button was his way to blink when his eyes wanted to absorb something for a second longer. Every photo was taken at a moment's notice. Some of them were still blurry. 

The comments called it a purposeful abstraction. But viewing everything as a choice was the opposite of freedom. Freedom only exists if there is something to break, and no greater purpose other than the way a mind cleared at untamed and unthought actions. 

Eiji couldn’t sleep. The sounds of whatever was on TV in the next room let him sit up. He emailed his professors and thanked them. He got replies a few minutes later all along the lines of questioning where he had been if he’d be willing to do each exhibit offered, and more congratulations. 

He didn’t reply to them. 

A strand of knocks echoed from the door. Ash didn’t leave the separate room. Eiji doubted if he slept that night in the hospital, either way, he couldn’t bother Ash more. He stepped out of bed. The floors were concrete and radiated coldness. At least there were no floorboards to creak under his weight. The knocking continued, louder this time. As much as his culture put an emphasis on removing shoes before entering the house, Eiji was sure that the feeling of movement strapped on his feet was the only reason he was able to pull the door open without hesitation. 

Sing stood in front of him. He fell forward slightly as the door opened, and his phone rested near his hip. 

“Eiji…” He looked around. “You weren’t at your apartment-” he said halfway between an explanation and a question. 

“I know.”

Sing leaned forward and after a few nondescript mouthed words, wrapped his arms around Eiji’s neck. He exhaled deeply against his shoulder. Eiji stood still in the embrace. Sing lifted his head and stepped away. White flags were always such a novel concept to Eiji. He wondered if he was the first to taint them with something other than blood. 

“Are you not going to say anything?” Sing’s head was cocked slightly to the side. His mouth was lifted in a strained smile. The moment they had gotten out of the bloodshed Sing spent hours watching whatever was on cable. Eiji guessed he’d never had the chance before. He looked like he was expecting a camera crew to come out of the hotel room. 

Eiji rocked the door back and forth with a loose grip on the handle. “If you’re here you already know. Why is everyone expecting an explanation?” The last question was whispered under his breath. 

“Because you almost died Eiji!” No matter how many times people said it, it didn’t change a thing. They say almost like it was a line to be crossed, and their presence had somehow erased it. His foot was still dangling over the edge. “Do you not realize that we care about you? Maybe value your existence just a little?” 

The door stopped rocking. “You and everyone else can debate what the hell you want me to say,” he glanced up at Sing. “I’ve gone through this conversation over and over.” He felt his shoulders slip in resignation. Eiji knew the hospital had an unopened wine bottle in the mini-fridge. The staff was waiting for the unsheathed cork to add stones to already existing pyramid schemes. It didn’t matter. He wanted to sleep.

“I didn’t mean it like that Eiji.” Sing sighed and cracked his knuckles at his waist. He always did that when he was nervous. “I’m happy you’re okay.”

“Mhm,” Eiji hummed. The hotel was unearthly cold, he could feel the goosebump raising on his arm. His other hand only felt in place if it rested across his chest. Like whatever frostbite was accumulating on him could be stopped if his palm laid across his upper arm. 

“Do you not care about how I felt?,” Sing inquired. Even if he had only grown a few inches he felt like a looming storm cloud. He stepped forward so his arm was in the doorframe. “Be honest Eiji.”

“Goodbye Sing,” Eiji breathed out. It was Sing, there was nothing to be afraid of. “I’ll see you later.” Eiji pushed the door with shaking hands, but Sing caught the wood with his hand. 

“What the fuck Eiji?” Sing pushed the door back, and the doorstop vibrated with the impact. “Hiding away from your problems isn’t some noble feat.” Sing reached out and gripped Eiji’s wrist. His touch wasn’t even tight. It was a mere shadow of what could have been, but Eiji pulled away and stepped back further into the room regardless. 

“I’m not helpless anymore.” Eiji hated the way he could feel tears building up. “Stop acting like you can protect me.” 

“Is that all you view me as,” Sing spat with a hand placed loosely on his chest. “A bad bodyguard?”

“Eiji are you okay?” Eiji jumped at Ash’s voice behind him. He hadn’t even noticed him coming. Sing’s face was the only reason Eiji knew it wasn’t just his imagination. 

“Is he really alive?” He asked. Ash only examined Sing in response. Sing straightened subconsciously and stared back. 

“You should relax,” Ash stated, looking towards Eiji. “It’s late.”

“No.” He stepped back up to Eiji and rested his hands on Eiji’s shoulders. “Eiji, talk to me,” he pleaded. “You’ve never been like this before.” Sing’s button lip pulled as he looked down at his friend. “Why did you do it?” The way he asked reminded Eiji that he was still a kid. “Is there something I’m missing?”

“Sing, stand down,” Ash hissed. 

“You're not one to be giving orders,” Sing said simply. “Ash.” He pronounced it with disdain sewed only in the same luxury suits Goldzine’s mansion varnished. 

“And cause you're in kahoots with Yut Lung you can?” 

Every file on Ash’s computer was listed with the names of the most influential people across the world. They were all spelled out with titles and what they controlled. Yut Lung’s was just the man’s initials. 

“I deserve to know what the hell happened.” Eiji didn’t know if it was just the effects of living in America, but conversations only seemed to snowball into shouting. Eiji was glad he left his shoes on. Maybe as blatant disrespect to every culture who relied on conformity, maybe just as another layer to be adorned. 

He pushed Sing’s hands off him with a snap. Sing’s arm twisted like jello as Eiji bent it away from him and bolted down the hallway. Whatever Ash shouted at him was drowned out by the sound of his own breathing. 

  * -



Piece 1: Untitled

It was a last-minute add-in on Eiji’s part. He had an old photo taken on a polaroid Shorter had given him of Los Angeles Chinatown. Ash refused to let them go in, so Eiji clicked the shutter from a sidewalk away. He collaged it with a photo of a river muddy with the previous night's showers and littered with the remnants of whatever hunting trip had occurred. The sidewalk became an ocean that would be out of place beside the familiar red glints of soda cans that mirrored the over-exuberant restaurant signs.

Piece 2: Untitled

The only one of the photos he had shot in America with the full professional set-up. It was his and Ibe’s test before they walked in with Skip. An alleyway next to the hoards of gang members and pool tables was covered in graffiti. Ibe looked at him skeptically when Eiji focused his camera on the fire escape above the messages. It took a few moments but the sun finally streamed through the cross-hatching and down onto the concrete. The red graffiti could have very well been blood, but the sunlight was exposed enough that it looked vibrant either way. 

Piece 3: Untitled

Eiji’s campus was filthy. Placing teenagers desperate to survive in one area would be. Most of the trash was food wrappers and bits of crumpled notebook paper- the occasional cigarette caught in the small gaps of the sidewalk. He had been walking to class and saw a pill bottle right next to the trash can. He presumed that someone had taken the last one and attempted to throw it out on their way to class. Eiji grabbed his phone. He edited out the orange that night, instead replacing it with a metallic silver hue. The trash cans at the university seldom got emptied. The ones that existed outside the building weren’t under the jurisdiction of janitors. Eiji always wondered if it was still there buried under plastic and food scraps. 

Piece 4: Untitled

The taxi on the way to the airport passed the public library. Eiji almost burned the chip the photo of that building was stored on after he found out about Ash. The edges of the image were framed by the car window. He passed by the building so fast that wisps of his hair caught at the top of the frame. People lined the streets but his camera didn’t have time to focus on any of them. The only detail it truly captured was a sculpture of a lion laid proudly outside. It looked proud at least in person. A teenager was perching on top of it waving a cigarette in the air, but his face was blocked off by the top of the window. 

Piece 5: Untitled

A sunset. It was an assigned project- go out and aim the lens at the sun and see what the outcome would be like. His camera had flitched halfway through the photo shoot, and he kicked the tripod in a moment of frustration. The shutter clicked the 20 or so times it was programmed to, and each frame looked like someone rolling down a hill. Eiji collaged it later that night so each sun was overlapped in the center. Like a Renaissance painting on the dome of a building years after the last pigments had been wiped away. 

Piece 6: Untitled

Another piece based on nature. His professor had a container of plants freshly cut in the front of the classroom. Most students grabbed the bright sunflowers. The lecture hall was painted blue. Complementary colors were drilled into whatever scene the class looked at. Eiji grabbed a single rose. He excused it as a trip to the bathroom, but the rose was tucked under his sleeve. He walked to the student bulletin board. Requests for roommates, study sessions, and new classes were pinned in anarchy. Eiji ripped one of the thorns off the stem and pinned the rose haphazardly on the board. 

Piece 7, 8, 9, 10: Untitled

Portrait shots. The models were bored by the time it was Eiji’s turn. 

Piece 11: Untitled

A shot of his childhood home. It was 4am when he took it. He didn’t know why he even went to that part of town. 

Piece 12: Dawn

The only picture Eiji had of Ash. He hated the frightened look that passed his face whenever a camera was mentioned. Ash didn’t even know Eiji was awake, sitting contently in his bed, watching the sunlight stream around the silhouette of Aslan. Eiji was hesitant to share it, but if there was supposed to be a purpose in his entire career it would be to capture a fraction of what went on in Ash. He would devote photo albums if it meant that the flick of each page meant they were a mile closer together. 

  * -



Sing hadn’t answered his calls. Yut Lung sighed and slipped his earring into his pocket. Even if it was convenient, and harnessed a greater sense of control, the signal could reach very few people. 

Anywhere else Yut Lung would sit in the forced luxury of whatever the chauffeur provided. His hair felt heavier in the loose bun on the back of his head. The muted clothing felt like he was hiding. Funny. A man who opened his arms to opposition still blending into the crowd. Years of spying and seduction would do that to a person. 

Instead tonight he walked along the streets in Japan. A few people walked past with coats pulled over their heads. Some closed their shops, their keys held like knives under the warm glow of the street lights. He wondered not for the first time what Blanca was doing. As much resentment as he felt to the man for leaving him, for being able to escape with no consequences, Yut Lung still longed for the company. Everyone else operated under him, and even when Blanca was supposed to be under his control they felt like equals. 

His family owned buildings across Asia, he selected a particular one at the edge of town for his excursion here. His brothers never visited there. The windows outlooked the sea, and the people were content with whatever land they had. Yut Lung was too far away from it to make it there by tonight. He debated stopping at all. Even if his mind wandered in the beams of the streetlights, it never sunk too deep. 

  * -



Eiji could only feel eyes on him. He swore he could hear Ash’s footsteps even after he was miles away and crouched behind a store. Ash was always silent until the moment he stopped in front of whoever he was chasing. Eiji left his phone back at the hotel but still patted his pocket in a panic every few minutes. His chest burned. He didn’t know how long he had been running, but he couldn’t recognize anything around him. The chill still seeped into his skin even through the layer of sweat on his forehead. 

He didn’t know why but the store felt unsafe. A few leaking pipes were creating an ominous metronome on the pavement. Strands of his hair stuck to his face and he brushed them off even if some tendrils still remained. He was grateful for the billboards and signs that were around him. Every angle they were another one canceled out his shadow. 

He rounded the corner and stopped when he saw Yut Lung standing in front of him. The other’s face remained in his classic neutrality, but one eyebrow peaked in interest. 

Whatever reason he was here, he seemed equally surprised by Eiji’s appearance. Yut Lung slid his foot back so he was standing with the poise his acquaintances expected. 

“Hello Eiji,” he greeted, one hand resting under his chin, and a creeping smile. He glanced at Eiji’s state of disarray and nodded to himself. 

“I think I may be of service.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dUn DUNN, it's not that much of a cliffhanger but like- it's something.
> 
> Thank you for reading :)
> 
> A little disclaimer for any photographers, I don't know photography in the slightest. I based my perspective of all of that on painting principles since I know much much more about that- but like, I am lowkey thinking of painting the photo's I described. All of them were completely on a whim but like the concepts are much better than things I've actually planned out.


	13. Ignorance is Bliss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yut Lung is a bad influence, Eiji is too tired to care. Sing is still a kid, and Ash is somehow equally dense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally getting to more normal-ish length chapters, wow, who would have thought it was possible. 
> 
> TW: misuse of alcohol, Ash with a knife

“I think I may be of service.” Yut Lung held up a hand as Eiji opened his mouth. “Let me explain. You look rather winded after all,” he pointed off. Eiji’s breaths were uneven at best, and the consequence of standing still for so long started to pull at his muscles. Eiji peered nervously around the street, no matter how empty it seemed the perpetual street signs put him on edge. Yut Lung seemed to notice this and began to walk, flicking his hands in the air as he explained further. “For Sing’s sake I kept track of you. He asked me to.” A few strands of Yut Lung’s hair fell out of his bun as he flicked back to look at Eiji. “He travels enough, and doesn't want you to be defenseless.” Eiji gripped his hands at his side and walked faster until he was next to the other man. “I didn’t accept his proposition because I thought like him,” Yut Lung pointed out. Eiji swore he could see a semblance of a smile on his face. “When I saw the hospital reports I was intrigued.”

“You were the one who got me out,” Eiji said, putting the puzzle pieces together. Sing never took his personal phone with him when he traveled, and yet he showed up only hours after Eiji had been released. Max shouldn’t have had contacts in Japan anyways. Maybe he thought he had indeed gotten Eiji out, that low-level manipulation was Yut Lung’s second nature. 

“Correct.” They turned to the right, passing through a small alleyway before landing on an even more desolate part of the city. The sky seemed clearer even a few hundred feet over. A few stars glowed in subtle specks, and Eiji mindlessly connected them.

“I mused that you didn’t belong in our world, but I’m starting to think that you do.” Yut Lung talked like poetry. Everything embodied gracefulness. Yut Lung noticed his staring and offered his own gaze, their eyes connected after a second. “So I offer my hand. I doubt you’ll want to go back to someone who will protect you. Your face when I mentioned Sing’s intentions was enough to let me know that you despise how they view you.”

Maybe it was just how late it was, but the offer felt like a saving grace. “Did you forget how much pain you caused?” Eiji asked. 

“Bad things happen because of every action,” Yut Lung explained. Ash only to count last breathes because Eiji was in danger. He was the one in Shorter’s nightmares. Sing was killed because of his incompetence. Yut Lung accepted his own words as truth. Karma seemed to gloss over the unintentional consequences. 

“Denying the effects is setting yourself up for failure.”

“You got Shorter killed,” Eiji accused. Yut Lung was their enemy, being in the same area as him was urging for more pain. He would be disgracing Shorter's name by listening to whatever convoluted thoughts led him to think it was okay to threaten Nadia. 

“I will not deny that my involvement led to his downfall. You can hold that above me for as long as it brings you solace. However, I can tell you’ve contemplated how your existence did the same.”

He started walking again, and Eiji tailed him. Piles of construction site debris that never quite got seen to fulfillment lined the path for the two. 

“What do you want?” Eiji asked. The look on Yut Lung’s face told Eiji that he had in fact noticed the avoidance of his statements. Yut Lung sighed in a way that embodied contemplation, the breath ending in a hum in his chest. 

“You almost succeeded in your attempt, and for that I admire you.” Eiji noticed the sea peerings over the concrete they traveled on. Yut Lung walked directly over the plateau, the foot closest to the water occasionally dipping and brushing the unkept sides of the path. “You cheated death with no prompting. You did it despite how you would lose your nobility of an anchor for those around you.” He stopped and turned back to Eiji. “Plus, what will you do if you refuse my offer? Keep running? We both know Ash will do anything to find you. I may at least be able to delay that.”

“You want me as a bargaining chip to Ash.” Eiji laughed as he looked back over the horizon. A few boats were docked, and they rocked with the moon's pull. If anything the moon in Yut Lung’s name felt fitting enough that it justified his demeanor. The encounter felt fitting with the mostly darkened moon overhead. Eiji used to love looking at it. He didn’t know when he stopped. 

“Of course not.” Eiji’s mouth pursed, and he studied Yut Lung closer. “When I first heard of his supposite death, I admit I longed for a final face-off, a final act so the curtains could close with roses thrown on stage.” Yut Lung made a sweeping motion with his hand that felt like a ballet move even if his hand only moved a few inches. “Even if I long for death in a way, I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction of finishing me off, he did promise to do so when he saw me next.” Eiji willed himself to be surprised at that, but a part of him knew that Ash had one response to suffering. “Ash may want to protect you, but your running away is indicative enough that you want a release.” A mischievous glint fell upon Yut Lung’s eyes. “I’ve made it this long with a clear conscience.” Every action of his looked so free. He killed anyone who would have constricted him, and even if the thought still repulsed Eiji, the untamed will of the other man was alluring. 

“Fine.”

He’d gone this far off the deep end. One last dive wouldn’t mean much if the lifeguard was already screaming from the shore. 

  * -



Ash’s footsteps around the apartment almost matched the hands on the clock. Each second was slightly delayed after his converse hit the ground. It was that close to synchrony that Ash almost wanted to line them up, instead, he paced faster, clenching the phone by his ear. “What do you mean you don’t know where Eiji is?” Max said frantically on the other end.

“It’s not my fault he fucking bolted,” Ash snapped. His other hand rested on the bridge of his nose. Sing stood in the corner scrolling through Eiji’s phone for any incentive he may have had to run as he did. The door was still open, and Ash fought the urge to run back out. He had slid down the stairs after Eiji but only stared at an empty intersection outside of the hotel. Sing defeatedly beckoned him back up to the hotel room. 

“It’s not safe for him to be alone,” Max stated. 

“Do you really think I don’t realize that Max?” Ash yelled through the receiver. He took a breath and gritted his teeth. “I don’t know the area around here, there’s only so much I can do.”

“I’m sorry kid.” A door closed on Max’s end. “Jessica is already renting a car so we can go look. I’ll call Ibe. I’ll meet you outside in ten.” Ash cut off the call before Max could finish. He shoved the phone in his pocket before stepping up to Sing. The younger glared back. 

“What the hell were you thinking Sing? He’s not in the mindset to deal with your bullshit.” All of Ash’s concentration went to keeping his voice quiet. He had heard the rustling of the rooms next door. If the police got involved Eiji’s return would be more of a shitshow than it already was. 

“Don’t ask like you didn’t say the exact same thing when you first saw him.” Ash threw his head to the side. He hated how hyper-aware he was. The sink in the bathroom was leaking and while Ash’s anger paralyzed his feet to face Sing, his mind wanted silence. The only time his perceptions were turned off was with Eiji.

“No one was prepared for this,” Sing continued. He slammed Eiji’s phone on the table next to him. The case had a sticker of a sunflower on it. “I was the one with him while you were busy hiding.” Sing’s finger jabbed into Ash’s chest. “You can’t tell me how to act with him.”

“I know him better than anybody.” Ash thought he could taste blood in his mouth, but his jaw didn’t loosen. 

“Eiji knows you better than anybody,” Sing confirmed. “That doesn’t mean it goes both ways.”

Ash had been so willing to spill his life out to Eiji. Eiji would take it in and whisper reassuring things, and smile whenever Ash broke out whatever panic he had worked himself into. Ash knew Eiji was kind. Every movement radiated warmth, like a wheat field in the setting sun. Adapting and impulsive in the wind, but an expanse of accompanied solitude. The stalks masked foreboding shadows and raised gentle hands in praise to the sky. He knew Eiji had a sister, he knew Eiji wasn’t scared of him. But did any of that constitute knowing him? It had been two years after all. This new Eiji had the voice of an angel on the fall from clouds of bliss, this new Eiji looked worn. 

This new Eiji left Ash’s side. 

“It’ll be faster if we split up,” Ash declared. He grabbed his flannel left on the ground and tied it around his waist. He became so accustomed to the pit in his stomach, that an external pressure distracted from it a little. Blanca introduced it to him first. ‘Anything can be a weapon,’ was his mantra. If crosshatched patterns of green was a weapon, then the foliage of every forest served only as a grave. 

“Fine.” Sing tossed his arms at his side. “Don’t be surprised when he doesn’t go with you again. You’ve gotten his share of sympathy,” he chided with a side glance. 

Ash threw Sing back into the wall he rested so casually on. The picture frame shook above him. Ash reached into his pocket and plunged a small silver-plated knife into the gaps of the wooden paneling. “You don’t have the right to say anything Soo-Ling,” Ash hissed. He twisted the knife blade into the wall with clenched hands. Sing didn’t flinch 

“You can’t expect him to love a murderer,” Sing insinuatingly remarked, leaning his face closer to Ash’s. A beacon call for a challenge of powers. 

  * \- 



“Where are we?” Eiji asked. The walls were covered in advertisements for places that seemed too pristine for the condition of the building. The floorboards creaked beneath him, and cobwebs hung delicately in the corner. Yet it carried an air of sophistication. The entryway was carefully painted with oriental flowers. The exposed wood held no imperfections, only the soft spiral of the grains. 

“An old business my father owned,” Yut Lung explained. “He passed ownership down to one of his confidants, but they know me well enough.” 

Yut Lung only had to serve a quick greeting before the front door was opened without hesitation by an elderly couple. Their faces were unwelcomingly free from creases around their mouths. The youthfulness of their skin had taken any smiles they had granted the world with them. 

Eiji traced the patterns of glass against the wall as he asked, “Don’t you have a mansion or something here?”

Yut Lung nodded and pulled open a small collapsing door that led to a flight of stairs. The railings had small carvings of forest animals in their bases. “Yes, but that would be easy to track. And in all honesty the people there are a special brand of morally incopent.” 

The two climbed the stairs in silence. It was dimly lit, and a few petite moths flew against the exposed lightbulb. Whatever effort was made into the appearance of the front room had been ignored here. The landing at the top spread out into several separate passages. Large vases sat by a firmly closed window. Yut Lung eyed them clearly reminiscing on something. 

“Do you hate everybody?” Eiji asked. As surprisingly comfortable as the silence felt, obscure questions were the only ones that could be muttered with the various arrays of art mediums all competing for his gaze. 

Yut Lung didn’t seem unnerved by the question. “To a certain extent,” he answered. He beckoned Eiji to the second hallway on the left. “It’s hard to be disappointed when you have such low standards.” At the second door, he turned back and asked with an all-knowing smirk. “I’m sure you prescribe to the ‘good-ness is in all’ philosophy.”

“I did. Some people changed that.” 

“Goldzine?” The door flicked open at a quick passcode entered into an outdated keypad. The pattern seemed like second nature to Yut Lung, so much so that Eiji couldn’t distinguish it.

“Yeah,” Eiji breathed out. “Saying the name makes it harder.”

“This is what I mean,” Yut Lung said with outspread arms, he looked around the room in a sort of mock greeting. He pointed one finger out and aimed at Eiji. People moved like their weapon of choice. Ash was purposeful and unrelenting- almost like each gun he held further melded into his skin. Arthur was violent and sly. If his eyes focused like daggers, then his entire person behaved like a knife. Whatever variety of needles Yut Lung had littered in his possession moved in calculated smooth motions, vibrant and expressive. 

“The man is dead and still has such a tight grasp on you.”

Eiji couldn’t deny that. He couldn’t help but wonder if Yut Lung purposely avoided whatever mansion sat somewhere in his possession just to avoid the memories of the man. “You said you have a clear conscience.” The original deal resurfacing. “Teach away.”

Yut Lung took a second to breathe in the room. Dozens of incense holders lined the bookshelves. He slipped onto a small comforter and undid the ribbon holding up his hair. The strands fell down his face with gentle waves, like an oil spill in a whirlpool. 

“You ignore it,” he said simply. “And when that fails you forget it.”

“I can’t ignore something that’s still alive and looking for me,” Eiji expressed with dismay. He took a seat on the opposite end of the comforter, a single leg tucked under him. 

“Then you forget.” Yut Lung looked wistfully at the ceiling. It looked like a rejected renaissance painting. A few mountains laid faintly in the distance, and sun-kissed clouds were the only things that still held any detail. “You get enough normality to last,” he clenched his hand before releasing it again, “until you can forget again.”

“What are you talking about?” 

Yut Lung reached to the side and slid out a small hidden compartment under the piece of furniture. He slid the top off to reveal an array of speckling glass bottles. The corks were the only indicator that they weren’t just another piece of art piled in this place. A few wine glasses sat ready at the bottom.

“You get drunk and forget your problems?” Eiji looked up to him, but Yut Lung was already twisting open a bottle. 

“Blanca was the only one who veered me away from it.” He tossed the cork to the side and placed his hand over the opening as the liquid threatened to bubble over. “But he has a private home in the Carribean. The rest of us have to live with our pain.” He poured a glass half full and traced spirals into the condensation that formed. 

Eiji stared at the dozens of full bottles. There were probably thousands of dollars captured in glass prisons. Yut Lung held the open bottle like it was a jailbreak of teenagers reclaiming their childhood with orange jumpsuits the only traffic cones they obey. 

“Your liver will corrode before you ever move on,” Eiji noted from his corner. 

Yut Lung took an exaggerated sip. “And when that happens I’ll die peacefully. If everything must go, I’d rather choose to meet my maker.”

“I suppose I can’t argue with that.” His arm was still bruised from the IV. 

“You must be used to people solving their problems with bullets by now.” Eiji nodded in response. “This is a legal alternative.” Eiji brushed his tongue against the bottom of his teeth, before holding out his hand to accept. Yut Lung placed a glass, and Eiji curled his fingers around the slender stem. The bubbles rose to the surface as Yut Lung poured the champagne? The labels were written in French. 

“You have extensive knowledge in poisons and toxins,” Eiji noted. “There must be a plant that is more fast acting, and more permanent.”

“The answer is quite simple really.” Eiji hummed to ask for an answer. “Alcohol tastes better. Easier to gauge control. Mescaline would have much stronger hallucinogenic properties. Countless other combinations could act as a stronger depressant.” He paused again and leaned back into the cushions, legs crossed in front of him. “Maybe it was just the way in which I was raised, but alcohol is the noble contaminant to your body's system.”

“You aren’t even seeking happiness, you truly just want to live in a blur.” Eiji spoke more to the ceiling than anyone in particular. He watched movies with poetic voice-overs over and over. The visuals were so stunning that he wished he could exist with the dramatic camera angles at his beckon and call. If he spoke with the same wistful tone as the protagonists maybe the already perfect setting would get the professional lighting it deserved. 

“There are many derivatives of happiness, mine comes from ignorance,” Yut Lung spoke with the same inflection. 

“Cheers,” Eiji offered, tipping his glass towards Yut Lung. “To freedom.”

Yut Lung copied the action, mouth slightly agape until the clink of the brims closed it into a smile. “To freedom.”

  * \- 



“Does anyone have any idea where he went?”

Max, Jessica, Ibe, Sing, and Ash stood in a loose circle in a random parking lot. The air felt dry. The entire mood of the party felt like it deserved a light drizzle, just enough to muddy the city and to leave visible spots where they had all stood. A testament to the night so it wouldn't be forgotten in whatever the outcome was. 

“No,” they answered in a chorus to Max’s question. Ash slumped defeated, balling his hands in his pockets. Jessica moved closer to Max’s side. 

“Wait-,” Sing exclaimed. As much as Ash still resented him, Sing looked genuinely confident. “I might have an idea. I need to make a call.”

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and frantically dialed the number. Everything was spoken in Chinese, and Ash tried to read Ibe to see if any phrases crossed languages. Ibe didn’t even seem like he was listening. He stood like a statue not quite finished, where the fabric was too flat to feel majestic. 

Sing turned back to the group. “Yut Lung apparently flew to Japan earlier this morning.”

Max looked between Sing and Ash. “You think he’s holding Eiji hostage?”

“I don’t know,” Sing replied with a tired shrug, “but it’s our best lead.”

Sing went back to making various calls to whatever contacts Yut Lung had in Japan. Max whispered comforting words to Ibe, and Jessica pulled at her nails. The waiting was driving Ash mad. He needed to do  _ something _ , but if Yut Lung (that bastard) really was using Eiji as a bargaining chip, he would expect Ash to run blindly to find him. Ash had to assume that Yut Lung knew he was alive, and that any enemy he still may have could have already found out. Even though he hadn’t seen a single soul pass their rendezvous in the parking lot, the idea of being in a group made his skin tingle. All he could do was listen to the buzzing of Sing’s calls. 

  * -



Eiji’s skin felt warm, and a layer of fog felt like he was flying over clouds. He didn’t know why he never tried this before. He’d been invited to college parties with alcohol much stronger than this. His words slurred under his breath a little, but it made everything seem more natural. Less scripted. “Okay, okay,” he breathed out, chuckling to himself. “I have a weird question. If we both lived normal lives where the hell would we end up?”

“Indeed a weird question,” Yut Lung retorted. He ended up sprawled across the couch opposite Eiji. One leg was propped on the armrest. “Is that something you actually think about?”

“You can’t tell me don’t.” Eiji’s mouth hurt from smiling. It was like his default setting went to a grateful smile at all times. Even if his eyelids felt heavier, he felt much lighter. Yut Lung was right, he forgot whatever feelings he had been infected with earlier that day. 

“I suppose I have a few times.” Yut Lung held up his glass to the chandelier above him. A few squares of light moved around the room at every new angle. “But I don’t even know what I want in the life I’m actually living.” He turned his head so it was resting flat against the couch as Eiji hummed searching for an answer. 

“I feel like you’d be a florist,” Eiji answered bubbly. 

“A florist-” Yut Lung made a mock gesture of being insulted, before laughing silently- “that’s the best you can come up with?”

“You already know enough about plants,” Eiji defended,” and it’s a normal job.”

“Most things are normal compared to poisoning people.”

“You have so many options,” Eiji pouted spinning his wine glass. 

“Are you jealous of how fucked up my actual life is?” Yut Lung sat up but placed a hand on the couch to balance himself. He looked amused. Eiji was good at reading people, but alcohol made his thinking process so much easier. 

“Not jealous.” Eiji waved his hands back and forth in front of him. “Oh!” He gasped. Yut Lung raised an eyebrow. “You could be a fashion designer. You have needles.”

“Knowing how to knock someone unconscious and sewing a hem are two very different things,” Yut Lung snickered. 

“If you're just gonna keep shooting down my idea’s you better give me some better ones.” Eiji couldn’t tell if it was his huffing (in his defense, the alcohol made it much harder to control) or the way his arms crossed his chest that made Yut Lung laugh harder in his seat. 

“I don’t think I could do anything mundane,” he admitted, playing with the hair over his shoulder. “As much as things are convoluted it’s at least entertaining.” He paused and pressed a finger to his lips. “I feel like you’d run an animal shelter.”

“I don’t know anything about animals,” Eiji exclaimed. He’d almost failed zoology in college. The teacher may have been crappy, but it didn’t excuse his complete cluelessness to the subject. 

“And I don’t know anything about dresses,” Yut Lung retorted. 

“Touche.” Eiji sighed and downed the last third of his drink. 

“You were a pole vaulter correct?” Yut Lung asked in the silence. 

“Mhm,” Eiji hummed back.

“Maybe you could have been an Olympic athlete.”

Eiji could almost feel the wind in his hair again. His couches told him that he could have gone far. Normally the subject would invite a sinking feeling of regret back into him, but for now, he could just acknowledge it as something that had happened. As much as he missed it, he couldn’t imagine himself doing an action just to try and beat records. 

“It would fit your qualifications of an exciting life.”

The incline of the ceiling made it hard to tell if the focusing in and out of his vision was because of the architecture or the alcohol. Eiji held up his palm to the sky to see if he could touch the layer of warmth around him. When he couldn’t he let his hand fall back to his side. 

“Do you think we will ever have normal lives?” Yut Lung muttered.

“No,” Eiji said immediately. Yut Lung’s face fell immediately. “I don’t think we will. Any of us. But,” he started, glancing over with a charisma he missed these past two years- “normal and peaceful aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“Another glass?” Yut Lung offered, reaching across the small space between the two pieces of furniture. Eiji grabbed it, surprised by how light it was. Another empty bottle sat abandoned on the floor. 

“Thank you.” Yut Lung returned his smile. It still didn’t reach the level of grandeur most people in the world could muster up, but it was enough. 

“Ash will probably be here soon.” Eiji thought aloud. 

“You were the one so insistent on forgetting about him,” Yut Lung reminded. “Why bring it up?” 

“I don’t want to  _ forget _ about him, I just want the hard part to be over.”

“I’m afraid there’s no alcohol for that.” They shared a look that conveyed ‘if only.’

“He’s going to freak out when he sees you,” Eiji warned. 

“Freak out is a bit of an understatement wouldn’t you say?” Yut Lung checked the door. It was still closed. The entire building felt still- but far from empty.

“Go berserk, fall into rage,” Eiji tossed out- “whatever you wanna call it- you might want to not be here.”

“It’ll happen eventually if he wants it to, why delay?”

Eiji hummed and readjusted himself, so his legs were crossed in front of him. “I thought you say that.”

“I’ve always wondered how the hell you two got so close. From what I’ve gathered you barely know each other.” 

Eiji sighed. “To be honest I don’t know either. It just feels”- he paused searching for the words. He knew he must have inserted some Japanese into this conversation by now, but Yut Lung didn’t comment on it. “-like I’ve always known him,” he finished. 

“And you're still avoiding him, such a baby.” Yut Lung’s felt like gossip without ill intent. 

“You suggested this,” Eiji cried smacking his hands playfully on the couch. 

“And  _ you _ listened to me of all people. I could have poisoned your drink so easily.”

“It will have been my choice to,” he put on an accent that he knew was horrible, and only vaguely resembled an element of grace- “meet my maker, to quote an over confident man.”

The phone rang from a table in the corner. Eiji jumped a little in his seat. 

“That would be Sing,” Yut Lung explained. “He’s the only one who would know how to contact this place.”

Eiji groaned and brought a leg up to his chest. 

“They’re probably still at the hotel. That gives us like half an hour before the door gets broken down,” Eiji offered. He still eyed the door nervously. Yut Lung walked over and lifted the receiver only to place it back down. Eiji would never be scared of Ash, but he was scared for Yut Lung. Eiji’s feelings towards him still were tainted with betrayal, but the longer he spent with the man, made Eiji realize that Yut Lung was doing what he could to survive. Eiji couldn’t forgive Ash and not also forgive him. 

“Sing feels like a child I’m forced to watch,” Yut Lung sighed as he sat back down. “It’s quite draining.”

“I guarantee Ash is worse.” 

“One more drink before we both have to deal with them again?”

Eiji lifted his glass to the sky. “To our last moments of freedom.”

  * \- 



Ash pulled up to the small building that Sing had told him. The younger man was already out of the door as Ash turned the key. Ash kept his knife in his hand, and he too ran out. The main room of the building was empty. The lights were all off except for the soft glow from under the door. Ash pushed it open and climbed the stairs two at a time. The top spread out like a spider's web, but he could hear the soft mumbling of voices and ran down the hallway. Another light was on under the second door. Sing took one look at its location and nodded. Ash jammed the hilt of the knife into the slit of the door.

“It’s unlocked,” Yut Lung called from the room. The voice sent flashbacks of Shorter into his head, but Ash pushed them down. His hand fell at the handle and turned it. Unlocked. It had to be some sort of trap. The familiar weight of Ash’s gun not secured in his waistband made him feel uneasy, but he still pushed open the door. 

“Hey Ash,” Eiji called. Followed by Yut Lung’s exasperated voice. “Sing I know you're here too, stop lurking in the shadows.

Ash skidded around the slight bend and felt his eyebrows furrow. Sing followed behind him. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ash muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this was kind of a weird spot to end at. I just didn't know if I could write more without this chapter being way too long, so this was the best stopping place. Thank you all for reading!
> 
> Eiji and Yut BroTP is something I live for now, also the next chapter will be mostly fluff. Drunk Eiji is happy Eiji, and Ash is too stressed to be mad (outwardly mad at least)


	14. Cityscapes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash and Eiji being cute- that's it. I reread garden of light and couldn't do anything angsty, so enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no trigger warnings that haven't already been stated. 
> 
> Heres the song used in this chapter. The artist is so underrated and I love her songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbzJA1nS7m4 
> 
> That's an acoustic version and closer to what I imagine the version in this chapter to be. 
> 
> ALSO, i found out about this gorgeous song through another banana fish fic. I felt kinda bad using the same uncommon song, but the song means a lot to me and I just wanted to include it. Here's the link to their fic- https://archiveofourown.org/works/22620556
> 
> Thank you everyone who has made it this far. I don't know how much longer this is going to continue. One or two chapters maybe? My plan for right now is a sort of tie-up for the present, and then maybe a short epilogue in the future. Let me know what you all think

“What the hell Eiji,” Ash bellowed. Eiji sat on a couch smiling, his hair fell messily in front of his face, and his face was flushed. “Do you not remember what he-” a sharp point at Yut Lung who seemed unfazed by it all- “did?”

“I do,” Eiji confirmed. His head bounced uncoordinated and he uncrossed his legs from out in front of him. Ash could hear the few pops it made as he stretched them straight out. “But he doesn’t judge me,” he finished with a pout. Yut Lung fiddled with his nails.

He unfurled the blade at his side, away from Eiji’s line of sight. “Because he leads the  _ fucking _ Mafia now.” 

Max had gotten his reporter job back and would send whatever intel not deemed fit for the public to Ash. Compilations of Yut Lung’s actions formed an intricate net. All of his moves were subtle- new ownership of a company, a short-lived appearance at a meeting, purchases of undetermined stocks. He operated under his brother’s names at his own guise. Yut Lung had advantages all over the world, all under different personas. His timing in Japan couldn’t have been a coincidence. Even if the panic of his motivations was creeping under Ash’s skin, it was Eiji’s reaction that sent the familiar coldness that spread to his weapon. ‘He doesn’t judge me.’ Did Eiji forget that the man was the prime factor in deciding him as bait? Ash always knew Eiji was compassionate, but even this felt manipulated somehow. 

Eiji tilted his head forward and glanced around Ash. He stood up, one arm falling on the armrest, and a few disoriented blinks, before walking to his side. 

“Ash,” Eiji sang. “No murdering.” He reached his hand down so his palm faced directly towards the blade. “Give me the knife.” 

Ash flung his arm backward and crossed his arm behind his back. “What the hell Eiji, are you drunk?”

“Don’t be mean Ash.”

“You drank something Yut Lung gave you?” Ash's mouth fell in disbelief before clenching. He glided past Eiji and slammed the knife into the cushion an inch from Yut Lung’s face. “What the hell did you put in his drink?”

Yut Lung held up his hands. Small silver rings lined each of his fingers. He flicked himself under Ash’s propped arm. “Nothing I swear, see.” He grabbed Eiji’s glass left abandoned on the table and sipped it with a raised eyebrow. “Clean.”

Ash jerked the knife back and flipped it once in his hand. It was lighter than he was used to. “One wrong move” he started with eye contact rivaling a sphinx- answers to his riddles were in merciful defeats. “and your body will be shipped back to China, your corpse can lay with the rest of your family. Now,” he sneered, “tell me what you want with Eiji.”

Eiji’s sleeves slipped over his hands. Ash could have sworn it fit him snuggly in America. His dull eyes were etched in comradery. “I told you he’d freak out,” Eiji chuckled to Yut Lung. 

The man in response placed the wine glass back on the table and resumed his position on the couch. 

Ash’s father went on hunting trips every year. Ash would watch from the ground as Jim perched on the hunting posts he mounted. Yut Lung had the same aura, only his actions didn’t have the clear motive of a cold-blooded killer. “I wasn’t aware we were putting bets on it,” he observed, twisting his wrist idly. 

Eiji latched on to Ash’s arm. Sing stood in the back observing in silence. “Come on Ash,” Eiji pleaded. “I’ll come back to the hotel, just leave him alone.”

“Do you not care about Shorter?” Ash spat back. The lights in the room made Eiji’s normally raven hair look violet. Shorter idolized artists- he would stare at graffiti after every hard day and trace the colors with his eyes. Art was the only subject Goldzine didn’t teach him. To him, it was a useless endeavor. Ash couldn’t help but pick up a color theory book on his visits to the library. Somehow knowing the history of every instance of purple made it seem even more nonexistent. Ash pointed another shaking finger at Yut Lung. “He’s the reason Shorter’s dead.”

“Ash,” Eiji deadpanned. The lightheartedness of his drunken haze faded, and he beckoned Ash’s attention with an icy inflection. “You spent two years pretending to be dead so everyone could be safe.” He smiled and the haze returned. “Don’t throw that away.”

He gave one last look at Yut Lung. The dragon tattoo made Ash almost feel the needle used to make it across his neck. He collapsed his knife and shoved it into his pocket. “Eiji we’re leaving,” Ash commanded. Sing took a step back and opened a path to the door. 

“Okie Boss,” Eiji chimed back in response. Sing raised a hand as Ash stomped past the door frame. A quiet ‘I got this.’ He could hear Sing’s idle berating as the door slammed between the two pairs. 

“Ash don’t be mad,” Eiji said quietly, one hand rubbing his eyes. His sweater really did drown him, his hunched shoulders did nothing to help that fact. Ash could feel his teeth buckle. 

“How can I not be mad?” He snapped. He looked at the floor and it’s ornate carpeting and lurched forward. He hated the carefulness of how it was made. He hated how he could feel it. Eiji followed at his heels until they both arrived at the stairwell. “I thought you were dead,” Ash started. “Again.” A defeated sigh escaped from his lips. “Do you really care about me that little that you would go and leave, and defend  _ him _ ?”

Eiji’s hand clenched at his side. “Of course I care Ash! You were all I could think about, and you came back, and I,” Eiji squeezed his eyes shut, only making they're suddenly opening all the more heartbreaking as they filled with tears. “I have no clue how to process it.” Ash longed to reach a single hand out, but gravity denied him the right. “Everyone hates me and I just needed a night to not think about it for one day. ”

“We don’t hate you.” The thought of Eiji even thinking that made Ash shutter. Eiji spent each conversation apologizing. Ash cursed himself for not realizing it sooner. “We were scared,” Ash explained. Eiji stared intently at him even if Ash couldn’t keep his gaze. “The only times I’ve been this scared was when it’s about you.”

“You don’t hate me?” The sincerity of the question made his stomach turn to quicksand. He recognized the tone in his own late-night pleadings. Eiji would smile reassuringly and bring a different cup of tea after Ash had calmed down, listing off the properties of each, and beaming as Ash thanked him after a shaking sip. Eiji had filled every role Ash was ever missing, and for the life of him, Ash couldn’t do anything but stand in the rundown building they both remained fixed to. 

“You’re the one person I can’t hate,” Ash confessed. “But,” he said, trying to reclaim the teasing tone that remained a baseline between the two - “that doesn’t mean you are getting off the hook for this.”

“Tomorrow?” Eiji offered. His hands relaxed and went to work nervously smoothing out the wrinkles on his jeans. 

“You’re gonna be hungover to do anything tomorrow Eiji,” Ash informed. He took the steps two at a time, but still stopped after each one as Eiji hobbled down them one by one hand gripping to the railing.

“I’ll be fine,” he pouted, a small yelp escaping as he miscalculated the final and largest step.”

“You’ve never been drunk have you?” Ash chuckled to himself at the silence but stopped as he made eye contact with Eiji. 

“I-,” he stammered, tightening his jacket around him. “I promise I’ll be okay tomorrow.” He smiled but looked distant. Ash did the same thing, memories were best recalled when you had nothing at that moment to recall in the future. Eiji started back towards the exit, but Ash stopped him. 

“You know that’s worse,” Ash stated openly. He hoped that Eiji would elaborate, even if Ash felt the familiar sense of anxiety of having to deal with what he already knew was true. Eiji was reckless when it came to other’s benefits. He would never agree to whatever this night was for him if there wasn’t a sure-fire result at the end. Ash reminded himself to throw away the complimentary wine at the hotel. 

“Maybe,” Eiji admitted. Ash let his arm fall back to his side, and pushed his shoulder into the exit door, before slipping the handle into his hand on the outside. Eiji walked past with an innocent smile, before eyeing the singular car parked improperly in front of the building. Eiji pulled open a door. Ash could already tell that Eiji’s internal monologue was mocking. Ash never locked anything. Anyone desperate to find him would have the skills to open it with ease. 

“How is Sing going to leave?” Eiji asked after Ash had sat down in the driver’s seat, and placed his hands on the wheel.

“He’ll figure it out,” Ash replied simply. Yut Lung was sure to have a plethora of vehicles at his disposal. Sing had the competitiveness to walk back anywhere if it meant he could bring it up later as a failsafe. 

Ash started the engine, and Eiji remained fixed on a street lamp, a soft melody filling the air around him. 

“What are you humming?” Ash inquired casually. He kept his eyes mostly on the road as he pulled out, but couldn’t help but be entranced. A blush slid across Eiji’s cheeks and he opened and closed his mouth a few times before replying. “Oh, nothing.”

“You’re still a lousy liar,” Ash mused, leaning back with one hand propped on the wheel. City lights blurred by, and the soft bumping of the changes in the pavement was comforting. Ash always liked just driving, no final destination in mind, just miles of road being passed with an entire landscape crammed into one sheet of glass. 

Eiji scoffed under his breath and crossed his arms in front of him. “Rude,” he said dejectedly, even if his soft glances afterward proved otherwise. 

“I still can’t believe I never knew you could sing.” Eiji looked at him in shock, before masking it with an all-knowing chuckle. 

“Everyone can sing.”

“You know what I mean,” Ash retorted. Eiji froze. 

“Wait- did you?”

“Yeah,” Ash muttered. “Ibe sent it.”

Eiji shook his head and sighed. “I swear he acts like a stalker sometimes.” Ash hummed in agreement. A few moments of silence - and the absence of Eiji’s humming- Ash spoke again.

“Your voice is pretty. Calming.”

“Thanks,” Eiji muttered after what seemed like too long to just be placing the words. 

“So I’ll ask you again,” Ash breathed out. “What were you humming?”

“The class,” Eiji started- “I was in had us write our own songs and present one at the end. I was humming the one that I didn’t perform.”

“Did you not like it or something?” Ash asked. 

“No, I like it,” Eiji confirmed. He seemed proud of it, the basic melody still being tapped against his leg. “Better than the first. It’s in English though. A little hard to grade lyrical stuff if it’s not in the language you speak.”

Ash nodded and twisted the wheel to the left. The hotel was still a good way away. 

“Relax,” Ash grinned. It was strange how much more he smiled when they were alone. “I’m not gonna ask you to sing it or anything,” Ash clarified. “I was just curious.”

Ash was one more stop-sign away before going on auto-pilot when Eiji started singing under his breath. The words were murky at first, every syllable being blended together with the slides between each note, and the trace remains of his accent. 

_ “Sweet summer wine, bare feet on brick road.” _

_ “Harsh city breezes kissing the shore line.” _

_ “The scent of your hair, it cools in the air.” _

_ “We waste our time slowly, but we don’t care.” _

It felt like a song that should be echoed in the wind. Ash could almost envision an expanse of woods in front of him. He’d grown so used to the city that anything as heavenly as the flowing syllables had to be as easily differentiable from his normal life. 

_ “Hold me in the late night sunlight.” _

_ “Empty your bottle, baby we’re free tonight.” _

Eiji’s falsetto was enchanting and disregarded whatever assumptions Ash had first made about his age. Ash had never had time to listen to music, wearing headphones was an attack waiting to happen, any extra noise was a flare. Everything in that life was dictated by time. Eiji’s voice was timeless, and Ash felt his mind slipping away as he listened to each word. It felt too poetic for Eiji to have written, but at the same time, Ash wasn’t surprised. 

_ “Ooo, baby. Dance with me. Tomorrow is still far away.” _

_ “Ooo, baby, all we need is whatever we got today.” _

Ash tried to ignore that fluttering in his heart as they both glanced at each other at that line. Luckily Eiji kept going before Ash could fully comprehend it. 

_ “So rest your hands in mine.” _

_ “Cheers to sweet summer wine.” _

If Eiji had indeed indulged in the ignorance that alcohol provided before, this song was the closest thing to a manifestation of the combined nights. It portrayed such longing and distant solace. Even despite the desperate lyrics, Ash knew he made the right choice coming back. If this was the feeling of just existing, Ash would capture death. Immortality was a double-edged sword sanded smooth with Eiji. 

_ “Sweet freedom blue, I wanna share them with you.” _

_ “And I know that you want to share with me too.” _

_ “You do, I know you do.” _

Eiji’s voice got stronger and more confident. The vibrato was more distinct, and each note felt like an embrace of sound. A string of vibrations Ash could dissolve into on, and be forgotten, all traveling on the empty roads towards the sunrise. 

_ “Hold me in the late night sunlight.” _

_ “Empty your bottle, baby we’re free tonight.” _

_ “Ooo, baby. Dance with me. Tomorrow is still far away.” _

_ “Ooo, baby, all we need is whatever we got today.” _

_ “So rest your hands in mine.” _

The lines slowed down and became more detached.

_ “Cheers to sweet summer wine.” _

Ash’s mouth hung open, as he glanced at Eiji, eyes still closed. He kept them fluttered shut as he concentrated. 

“Is it selfish of me to want you to keep going?” Ash questioned. He hated the feeling of asking for anything. Retribution was a powerful force. 

“For you I could do another,” Eiji said lightly. 

Any guilt he had faded away as Eiji started again. Eiji was asleep by the time they reached the hotel, and Ash carried him in careful to not wake him. He spent the rest of the night writing all the lyrics he could remember next to Eiji's bed. 


	15. Exhibit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ
> 
> I'm not dead! Sorry for the very late update. School has been very--- interesting. You may have noticed that the fic is now marked as complete. However, this is by no means the last chapter. I decided to be spicy and make this a series because 1. fics with too many chapters are much harder for me as a reader to stick with, and 2. I wanted to be able to do some different things like time jumps and not have it seem too weird, so keep your eye out for that! 
> 
> With that out of the way, onto the newest chapter!

“Eiji,” Ash berated standing at the end of the hotel's bed. “You don’t get to pull this shit and complain about my sleeping habits.” 

The sun was already high enough that it peered over the top of the buildings outside the window, and a maid had fumbled with the doorknob before realizing that the room’s guests were very much still inside. Ash had managed to get in contact with Max and give a more in-depth rundown of the night before. Max promised to give a watered-down version to Ibe. As much as he wanted to let Eiji sleep, the constant back glances Ash gave him were not working. Max had also set up a meeting for later that day, and while Ash would be more than happy to cancel he doubted it would go over well for any of the other parties. 

Eiji turned under the hotel's comforter and groaned. The blanket was pulled over his head, and his knees were tucked into his chest, as he buried his face deeper into his pillow. 

“Head hurts,” he complained, the roughness of sleep making its presence known. “Wanna sleep.”

Ash pulled out Eiji’s phone from his pocket. The screen was perfectly clean, but the small indents of the case were worn. “You’ve gotten like ten calls in the past hour,” Ash exclaimed, balancing the phone in his hands. The screen lit up with the movement. Make that eleven calls, and twenty-three messages.

“Eavesdropping on my personal life?” Eiji inquired, pulling the covers off his head. His eyes were glassy. He groaned when the sun landed in his eyes and flung his head back in a halfhearted attempt to brush his hair out of his face. 

“No,” Ash confirmed, and Eiji gave a small grunt in doubting. He tossed the phone at Eiji’s side, and with one arm still flung across his eyes, Eiji fumbled for it with an overly slow reaction. “Your ringtone is the most obnoxious thing I’ve heard. I needed to know where your phone was in case I needed to snap it.”

“Please don’t break my phone.” Eiji brushed his fingers over the screen, and his eyes widened as he saw the plethora of notifications.

“Get up and I’ll consider it,” Ash said pointedly. 

Eiji glared at him and flipped so he laid at the corner of the bed, and placed his feet on the ground. “Rude.” Ash hummed in agreement and grabbed the shitty hotel coffee the staff happily provided. Ash strode back to the small desk and flung himself on the seat. The one benefit of staying in New York was the stream of updates from Alex. The man became Boss and did an annoyingly good job at it. Now due to Ash’s stay in Japan, his information was given through coded messages - great for not being targeted, but a pain in the ass to decipher.

“Fuck,” Eiji whispered. Ash turned to see him frantically scrolling through his phone. 

“It’s still weird to hear you curse,” Ash replied simply, slipping out of the chair and to his side. 

Eiji glanced at him with a penetrating glare, before burying back into the email. Ash tried to ignore the way Eiji flinched when he realized Ash was glancing over his shoulder. Ash pulled back and stood cautiously to the side. 

“Who’s it from?” It was written in Japanese, and as many hours Ash had poured into trying to understand the language in Eiji’s absence, the writing gave him a headache. Eiji didn’t answer for a few moments, lips pursed as he flipped through various tabs. 

“Oh no,” Eiji slumped with the exclamation, “I need to go?”

“Is that a question or a statement?” 

“A declaration of panic,” Eiji resolved, slipping on a pair of shoes that had been discarded at the foot of the bed. Traces of black were smeared on the side. 

“Mind explaining?”

The coffee was lukewarm at best by now, and Ash discarded it on a nightstand. His hands felt foreign without something to grip to. The weight of his gun was still absent in his waistband. 

“I submitted a portfolio for my college,” Eiji started, “and  _ apparently _ one of my professors put my name in for a gallery without telling me.” Eiji glared back at the phone before slipping it into his pocket. Even if the clothes were a day old, they must have been presentable enough. “I need to be there.”

“Damn, Ibe’s gonna be jealous.” As much as Eiji seemed to look up to his mentor's skills, Ash had never heard of exhibits. Maybe it was just the nature of his work- pictures for journals aren’t quite metaphorical and introspective enough to warrant a special appearance. 

At the mention of the older man’s name Eiji’s eyes widened. He buried his head in his hands and gripped at his hair until it was pulled over his ears. 

“Oh god, I still haven’t talked to him,” he recalled, head still facing the floor. Ash’s hands fluttered in indecision. Everything Eiji had done last night felt too surreal, too much like their old interactions. Part of Ash wanted to reach out and comfort Eiji the way he had done to Ash so many times, but the other part saw the frenzy that had already made itself known in Eiji.

“You can deal with him later,” Ash consoled, even if he wasn’t convinced it did anything to help the situation. His familiar apathy, even unintentional, was not ideal. However, Ibe was rational enough to not do anything too out of character, so Ash wouldn’t have to worry about deceit. “Preferably when you are slightly less hungover,” Ash added, calculating the exchange that could occur. 

“Do-,” Eiji started. He had pulled himself up and slipped on a plain black jacket before resting his hands in the pocket. “Are you coming with me?” he finished. 

Ash shrugged in agreement, powering off the laptop on the desk. “I’m not thrilled with the idea of leaving you alone. Plus your photos are nice.” He turned to Eiji expecting the sense of pride he always seemed to have about his work, instead, it was replaced with panicked indifference. Ash wasn’t sure how that combination was possible, but while Eiji’s gaze remained unfocused and distant, his hands moved uncoordinatedly beneath the fabric of his jacket. 

“You really don’t have to, it’s gonna be boring. Most of it is setting it up and paperwork,” he rattled off in quick succession. “I’ll be fine. You should just stay here.” A smile plastered his face but diminished the longer Ash waited to reply. 

“Do you not want me to go?”

“No, no it’s not that.” Ash hummed questingly. “I mean..”

“That’s a yes,” Ash translated to himself. “You understand that I can’t just let you leave, right?”

“Of course I do,” Eiji sighed. One foot had been stretched toward the door, but Eiji nervously stepped back to face Ash, even if he didn’t keep eye contact. Ash tried to not press it, but the pit in his stomach grew every second that passed. 

“I’ll let you do your thing if you don’t want me there,” Ash tried to brush off, although he waited for Eiji’s apology and invitation to go with him. 

‘I didn’t say that,’ was the answer instead. 

“Eiji?” Ash asked, stepping closer to him. 

“Hm?”

“Eiji,” Ash started again, their faces inches apart. 

“What is it?” Eiji asked, nervously meeting Ash’s eyes.

“That,” Ash declared, stepping back one finger outstretched. “That right there. You’re avoiding saying my name. You’ve never done that.” It was that insistent staring that piqued Ash’s interest the first time they met, and the display of emotions in each iris that made Ash never want to leave. Ash lifted a second finger as he continued. “You said you ‘didn’t say that,’ but never told me what you meant to say.” A third. “You normally speak articulately. I could chalk it up to you not using English for a while, but you managed to speak perfectly fine last night.”

Eiji tossed his head to the side. “It’s nothing,” he refuted. 

“If you don’t want me here just say the word,” Ash offered. “I can leave…  _ once _ I get an explanation. Max or Ibe can watch you.”

“No one needs to watch me.” Ash simply watched as Eiji realized how sharp his own words had been, and lowered his head again. 

“Really?” Ash chuckled to himself. “Even when Sing and I were both here you still ran away, and when you were left alone before you tried to drown yourself.” Ash hated having to bring it up, but the evidence was evidence regardless of the drawbacks. Maybe if he said it enough times it would fully process. 

“Stop saying it like you haven’t done the same thing.” Ash’s glare intensified. “I heard what happened with Foxx. You can’t deny that was a suicide mission. Stop saying it like I’m a worse person because of it without realizing your own actions.” Eiji’s hands clenched at his side, and Ash could see the tension building in his jaw. “The only reason I’m like this is because you left. You left, and how could I not think it was my fault?” Eiji seemed shocked by the sudden lack of sound the moment the question landed. 

“Please,” he started - voice barely above a whisper - placing his hands back in his pockets. “I can’t do this right now.”

Ash’s outbreaks were often driven by the knowledge of ‘why.’ He learned why they dragged Shorter’s body out, he learned why Goldzine kept him in his mansion only to be an assistant to the mafia. But with Eiji, he hated the unknown more. Ash reached out and gripped Eiji’s shoulder, pulling him away from the door. 

“Just fucking say it Eiji.” 

Eiji’s eyes laid entranced on the spot Ash had grabbed even when Ash brought it back down. “Fine,” Eiji said submissively. His muscles unclenched a somehow worse display of discomfort than before. “Everyones walked on eggshells ever since you faked your fucking death.” Ash recoiled at the venom in that declaration. “I don’t want you to see any more of what I was while you were gone. You’re back. That’s the only thing that’s changed and maybe somehow that’ll be a cure for everything.” Eiji picked at his fingernails. A few specks of red appeared as he added more intensity to the words. “I’m my own person now, and acknowledging that you’re still here… I can’t have you with the same memories of me like that. I told myself that I’d be fine once everything was done, because you would be the same as you always were, and I could see you again. I’m so happy that you’re here, but that doesn’t mean anything if  _ I’m not the same _ .  _ That _ Eiji got everyone around him killed, and this one has no plan for the future because the future wasn’t even a possibility until a week ago.  _ That _ Eiji was scared of physical things, but he knew that you were there to protect him. You asked if I scared you,” Eiji glanced up. His eyes were bloodshot. “Remember? At the mansion?” except Eiji didn’t wait for his response. They both knew the answer. “And back then I didn’t. I never could, but- but this Eiji is scared of you, Ash.” 

“The worst part,” Eiji continued, tears catching the sunlight leaking from the window, “is that it’s so irrational. God,” he said. The way his voice cracked was counterproductive to the cathartic nature of it. “It’s the stupidest thing to think, but I can’t stop thinking about it. If you exist, that means that I’m going to hurt someone else, that means that someone,” he shook his head,” or even something is chasing me, and that means I have to protect you and I don’t know how to do that.”

“Get over yourself!” Ash bellowed. He hated the way his eyes sharpened instinctively looking for a target. “You can’t live in the past. I would have been dead far too many times if I had. That’s the only way to survive.”

“You’re missing the point,” Eiji hissed. “I don’t want to survive. Whatever meaning you assign to that is up to you. And I can’t forget the past because the past is the only good thing I’ve had.  _ You _ , and Shorter, and Max, Jessica- all of them. I don’t care if looking back would have gotten you or me killed, because we both know you’re just as haunted. I’m sorry that suffering doesn’t have a scale. I’m sorry you can’t be superior this once.”

“Max, Jessica and I are still here. I can’t do everything for you Eiji. If you want things to change you have to  _ fucking _ do something.”

“I know you can’t do everything  _ Ash _ !” A tear hung to the bottom of his chin. The surface tension of water had a great way of making everything seem more desperate. “God, you aren’t even listening to me.” Eiji looked up at the ceiling. He always seemed to do that when he needed a clear head. Something about the angle was akin to him vaulting. He looked disheartened when the ceiling tiles didn’t have the answer written on them. 

“You know, I do have a question,” he stated again. Ash waited for the preposition. Eiji never asked questions to get instructions, he proposed solutions and waited for diplomacy or war to break out over them. “Do you want me,” he asked, wiping the tears off his cheek, “or do you want the old Eiji to do something? You’ve been hurt enough to know that there’s a difference. If you're so insistent on making this more about you than it already was, then you can decide.”

“You wouldn’t listen to what I say anyways,” Ash answered. “You never did.” 

Eiji nodded, turning his head away, and swallowed harshly. “I’m late,” he breathed out before flinging open the apartment door.

“I still care, you know,” Ash called. His feet remained planted in the ground, and he watched in horror as Eiji kept his back to him. “I never stopped caring.”

“Bye Ash.”

  * \- 



“Hey, Eiji!” Mieno greeted with a tower of information cards and renting forms in his hands. He still had the exuberance to clap in excitement. “It’s the big day.” He tossed his head to the walls of framed photographs. Several other artists were being featured. “Most of it is set up already, we just need your approval.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Eiji dismissed, one hand raised as he passed towards the back room. “Thank you.”

Mieno gave a concerned glance until the next photographer walked through the doors and he could recite the same speech. 

Eiji pushed open the storage closet the furthest away from the tables set up for the general public. He held his phone in shaking hands and turned it off. Every muscle in his body felt limp. The exhibit was four miles from the hotel, and even with the time pressure, Eiji walked the whole way.

“I’m sorry Ash,” he whispered into his knees and waited. 

  * -



“Hello Ms. Okumura,” Ibe said with slight hesitation. A woman answered on the other side, and Ibe rested his head against the wall. “It’s about Eiji,” he murmured in defeat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cLIffHangeR
> 
> as always, a huge thank you to everyone who commented and gives kudos


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